<section id="preamble">

<h1 id="title">The Life and Death of King John</h1>

</section>

<section class="act">

<h2>Act 1</h2>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 1</h3>

<h4>A room in King John’s palace.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter King John, Queen Elinor, Pembroke, Essex, and Salisbury, with the Chatillion of France.
	
		K. JOHN.
		EL.
		PEM.
		ESSEX.
		SAL.
		CHAT.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Now say, Chatillion, what would France with us?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CHAT.">
  <li>Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France</li>
  <li>In my behavior to the majesty,</li>
  <li>The borrowed majesty, of England here.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li data-number="5">A strange beginning: “borrowed majesty”!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Silence, good mother, hear the embassy.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CHAT.">
  <li>Philip of France, in right and true behalf</li>
  <li>Of thy deceased brother Geffrey’s son,</li>
  <li>Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim</li>
  <li data-number="10">To this fair island and the territories,</li>
  <li>To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,</li>
  <li>Desiring thee to lay aside the sword</li>
  <li>Which sways usurpingly these several titles,</li>
  <li>And put the same into young Arthur’s hand,</li>
  <li data-number="15">Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>What follows if we disallow of this?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CHAT.">
  <li>The proud control of fierce and bloody war,</li>
  <li>To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Here have we war for war and blood for blood,</li>
  <li data-number="20">Controlment for controlment: so answer France.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CHAT.">
  <li>Then take my King’s defiance from my mouth,</li>
  <li>The farthest limit of my embassy.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace.</li>
  <li>Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;</li>
  <li data-number="25">For ere thou canst report, I will be there;</li>
  <li>The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.</li>
  <li>So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath,</li>
  <li>And sullen presage of your own decay.</li>
  <li>An honorable conduct let him have.</li>
  <li data-number="30">Pembroke, look to’t. Farewell, Chatillion.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt Chatillion and Pembroke.
	
		CHAT.
		PEM.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>What now, my son, have I not ever said</li>
  <li>How that ambitious Constance would not cease</li>
  <li>Till she had kindled France, and all the world,</li>
  <li>Upon the right and party of her son?</li>
  <li data-number="35">This might have been prevented and made whole</li>
  <li>With very easy arguments of love,</li>
  <li>Which now the manage of two kingdoms must</li>
  <li>With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Our strong possession and our right for us.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li data-number="40">Your strong possession much more than your right,</li>
  <li>Or else it must go wrong with you and me;</li>
  <li>So much my conscience whispers in your ear,</li>
  <li>Which none but heaven, and you, and I, shall hear.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter a Sheriff and whispers Essex in the ear.
	
		SHER.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="ESSEX.">
  <li>My liege, here is the strangest controversy</li>
  <li data-number="45">Come from the country to be judg’d by you</li>
  <li>That e’er I heard. Shall I produce the men?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Let them approach.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Exit Sheriff.
	
		SHER.
	
</li>
  <li>Our abbeys and our priories shall pay</li>
  <li>This expedition’s charge.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Enter Robert Faulconbridge and Philip the Bastard.
	
		ROB.
		BAST.
	
</li>
  <li data-offset="5">What men are you?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="50">Your faithful subject I, a gentleman,</li>
  <li>Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son,</li>
  <li>As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge,</li>
  <li>A soldier, by the honor-giving hand</li>
  <li>Of Coeur de Lion knighted in the field.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="55">What art thou?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ROB.">
  <li>The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?</li>
  <li>You came not of one mother then, it seems.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Most certain of one mother, mighty King—</li>
  <li data-number="60">That is well known—and, as I think, one father;</li>
  <li>But for the certain knowledge of that truth</li>
  <li>I put you o’er to heaven and to my mother.</li>
  <li>Of that I doubt, as all men’s children may.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>Out on thee, rude man, thou dost shame thy mother,</li>
  <li data-number="65">And wound her honor with this diffidence.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>I, madam? No, I have no reason for it;</li>
  <li>That is my brother’s plea and none of mine,</li>
  <li>The which if he can prove, ’a pops me out</li>
  <li>At least from fair five hundred pound a year.</li>
  <li data-number="70">Heaven guard my mother’s honor, and my land!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>A good blunt fellow. Why, being younger born,</li>
  <li>Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>I know not why, except to get the land;</li>
  <li>But once he slander’d me with bastardy.</li>
  <li data-number="75">But whe’er I be as true begot or no,</li>
  <li>That still I lay upon my mother’s head,</li>
  <li>But that I am as well begot, my liege</li>
  <li>(Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!),</li>
  <li>Compare our faces, and be judge yourself.</li>
  <li data-number="80">If old Sir Robert did beget us both,</li>
  <li>And were our father, and this son like him,</li>
  <li>O old Sir Robert, father, on my knee</li>
  <li>I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li data-number="85">He hath a trick of Coeur de Lion’s face,</li>
  <li>The accent of his tongue affecteth him.</li>
  <li>Do you not read some tokens of my son</li>
  <li>In the large composition of this man?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Mine eye hath well examined his parts,</li>
  <li data-number="90">And finds them perfect Richard. Sirrah, speak,</li>
  <li>What doth move you to claim your brother’s land?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Because he hath a half-face like my father!</li>
  <li>With half that face would he have all my land—</li>
  <li>A half-fac’d groat five hundred pound a year!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ROB.">
  <li data-number="95">My gracious liege, when that my father liv’d,</li>
  <li>Your brother did employ my father much—</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land;</li>
  <li>Your tale must be how he employ’d my mother.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ROB.">
  <li>And once dispatch’d him in an embassy</li>
  <li data-number="100">To Germany, there with the Emperor</li>
  <li>To treat of high affairs touching that time.</li>
  <li>Th’ advantage of his absence took the King,</li>
  <li>And in the mean time sojourn’d at my father’s;</li>
  <li>Where how he did prevail I shame to speak.</li>
  <li data-number="105">But truth is truth. Large lengths of seas and shores</li>
  <li>Between my father and my mother lay,</li>
  <li>As I have heard my father speak himself,</li>
  <li>When this same lusty gentleman was got.</li>
  <li>Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath’d</li>
  <li data-number="110">His lands to me, and took it on his death</li>
  <li>That this my mother’s son was none of his;</li>
  <li>And if he were, he came into the world</li>
  <li>Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.</li>
  <li>Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,</li>
  <li data-number="115">My father’s land, as was my father’s will.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Sirrah, your brother is legitimate,</li>
  <li>Your father’s wife did after wedlock bear him;</li>
  <li>And if she did play false, the fault was hers,</li>
  <li>Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands</li>
  <li data-number="120">That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,</li>
  <li>Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,</li>
  <li>Had of your father claim’d this son for his?</li>
  <li>In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept</li>
  <li>This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;</li>
  <li data-number="125">In sooth he might; then if he were my brother’s,</li>
  <li>My brother might not claim him, nor your father,</li>
  <li>Being none of his, refuse him. This concludes:</li>
  <li>My mother’s son did get your father’s heir;</li>
  <li>Your father’s heir must have your father’s land.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ROB.">
  <li data-number="130">Shall then my father’s will be of no force</li>
  <li>To dispossess that child which is not his?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,</li>
  <li>Than was his will to get me, as I think.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>Whether hadst thou rather be a Faulconbridge,</li>
  <li data-number="135">And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land;</li>
  <li>Or the reputed son of Coeur de Lion,</li>
  <li>Lord of thy presence and no land beside?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Madam, and if my brother had my shape</li>
  <li>And I had his, Sir Robert’s his, like him,</li>
  <li data-number="140">And if my legs were two such riding-rods,</li>
  <li>My arms such eel-skins stuff’d, my face so thin</li>
  <li>That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose</li>
  <li>Lest men should say, “Look where three-farthings goes!”</li>
  <li>And to his shape were heir to all this land,</li>
  <li data-number="145">Would I might never stir from off this place,</li>
  <li>I would give it every foot to have this face;</li>
  <li>It would not be Sir Nob in any case.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>I like thee well. Wilt thou forsake thy fortune,</li>
  <li>Bequeath thy land to him, and follow me?</li>
  <li data-number="150">I am a soldier, and now bound to France.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Brother, take you my land, I’ll take my chance.</li>
  <li>Your face hath got five hundred pound a year,</li>
  <li>Yet sell your face for five pence and ’tis dear.</li>
  <li>Madam, I’ll follow you unto the death.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li data-number="155">Nay, I would have you go before me thither.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Our country manners give our betters way.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>What is thy name?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Philip, my liege, so is my name begun,</li>
  <li>Philip, good old Sir Robert’s wive’s eldest son.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="160">From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bearest:</li>
  <li>Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great,</li>
  <li>Arise Sir Richard, and Plantagenet.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Brother by th’ mother’s side, give me your hand;</li>
  <li>My father gave me honor, yours gave land.</li>
  <li data-number="165">Now blessed be the hour by night or day</li>
  <li>When I was got, Sir Robert was away!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>The very spirit of Plantagenet!</li>
  <li>I am thy grandame, Richard, call me so.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Madam, by chance, but not by truth; what though?</li>
  <li data-number="170">Something about, a little from the right,</li>
  <li>In at the window, or else o’er the hatch.</li>
  <li>Who dares not stir by day must walk by night,</li>
  <li>And have is have, however men do catch.</li>
  <li>Near or far off, well won is still well shot,</li>
  <li data-number="175">And I am I, howe’er I was begot.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Go, Faulconbridge, now hast thou thy desire,</li>
  <li>A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.</li>
  <li>Come, madam, and come, Richard, we must speed</li>
  <li>For France, for France, for it is more than need.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="180">Brother, <foreign xml:lang="fr">adieu</foreign>, good fortune come to thee!</li>
  <li>For thou wast got i’ th’ way of honesty.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt all but Bastard.
	
		K. JOHN.
		EL.
		ESSEX.
		SAL.
		ROB.
	
</li>
  <li>A foot of honor better than I was,</li>
  <li>But many a many foot of land the worse.</li>
  <li>Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.</li>
  <li data-number="185">“Good den, Sir Richard!” “God-a-mercy, fellow!”</li>
  <li>And if his name be George, I’ll call him Peter;</li>
  <li>For new-made honor doth forget men’s names;</li>
  <li>’Tis too respective and too sociable</li>
  <li>For your conversion. Now your traveler,</li>
  <li data-number="190">He and his toothpick at my worship’s mess,</li>
  <li>And when my knightly stomach is suffic’d,</li>
  <li>Why then I suck my teeth, and catechize</li>
  <li>My picked man of countries. “My dear sir,”</li>
  <li>Thus, leaning on mine elbow, I begin,</li>
  <li data-number="195">“I shall beseech you”—that is question now;</li>
  <li>And then comes answer like an Absey book:</li>
  <li>“O sir,” says answer, “at your best command,</li>
  <li>At your employment, at your service, sir.”</li>
  <li>“No, sir,” says question, “I, sweet sir, at yours”;</li>
  <li data-number="200">And so ere answer knows what question would,</li>
  <li>Saving in dialogue of compliment,</li>
  <li>And talking of the Alps and Apennines,</li>
  <li>The Pyrenean and the river Po,</li>
  <li>It draws toward supper in conclusion so.</li>
  <li data-number="205">But this is worshipful society,</li>
  <li>And fits the mounting spirit like myself;</li>
  <li>For he is but a bastard to the time</li>
  <li>That doth not smack of observation—</li>
  <li>And so am I, whether I smack or no;</li>
  <li data-number="210">And not alone in habit and device,</li>
  <li>Exterior form, outward accoutrement,</li>
  <li>But from the inward motion to deliver</li>
  <li>Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age’s tooth,</li>
  <li>Which though I will not practice to deceive,</li>
  <li data-number="215">Yet to avoid deceit, I mean to learn;</li>
  <li>For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.</li>
  <li>But who comes in such haste in riding-robes?</li>
  <li>What woman-post is this? Hath she no husband</li>
  <li>That will take pains to blow a horn before her?</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Enter Lady Faulconbridge and James Gurney.
	
		LADY F.
		GUR.
	
</li>
  <li data-number="220">O me, ’tis my mother. How now, good lady,</li>
  <li>What brings you here to court so hastily?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LADY F.">
  <li>Where is that slave, thy brother? Where is he,</li>
  <li>That holds in chase mine honor up and down?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>My brother Robert, old Sir Robert’s son?</li>
  <li data-number="225">Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man?</li>
  <li>Is it Sir Robert’s son that you seek so?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LADY F.">
  <li>Sir Robert’s son! Ay, thou unreverend boy,</li>
  <li>Sir Robert’s son! Why scorn’st thou at Sir Robert?</li>
  <li>He is Sir Robert’s son, and so art thou.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave a while?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="GUR.">
  <li>Good leave, good Philip.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-offset="5">Philip? Sparrow! James,</li>
  <li>There’s toys abroad; anon I’ll tell thee more.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Exit James Gurney.
	
		GUR.
	
</li>
  <li>Madam, I was not old Sir Robert’s son;</li>
  <li>Sir Robert might have eat his part in me</li>
  <li data-number="235">Upon Good Friday and ne’er broke his fast.</li>
  <li>Sir Robert could do well—marry, to confess—</li>
  <li>Could he get me. Sir Robert could not do it;</li>
  <li>We know his handiwork. Therefore, good mother,</li>
  <li>To whom am I beholding for these limbs?</li>
  <li data-number="240">Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LADY F.">
  <li>Hast thou conspired with thy brother too,</li>
  <li>That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honor?</li>
  <li>What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Knight, knight, good mother, Basilisco-like.</li>
  <li data-number="245">What, I am dubb’d! I have it on my shoulder.</li>
  <li>But, mother, I am not Sir Robert’s son,</li>
  <li>I have disclaim’d Sir Robert and my land,</li>
  <li>Legitimation, name, and all is gone;</li>
  <li>Then, good my mother, let me know my father;</li>
  <li data-number="250">Some proper man, I hope. Who was it, mother?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LADY F.">
  <li>Hast thou denied thyself a Faulconbridge?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>As faithfully as I deny the devil.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LADY F.">
  <li>King Richard Coeur de Lion was thy father.</li>
  <li>By long and vehement suit I was seduc’d</li>
  <li data-number="255">To make room for him in my husband’s bed.</li>
  <li>Heaven! Lay not my transgression to my charge,</li>
  <li>That art the issue of my dear offense,</li>
  <li>Which was so strongly urg’d past my defense.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Now by this light, were I to get again,</li>
  <li data-number="260">Madam, I would not wish a better father.</li>
  <li>Some sins do bear their privilege on earth,</li>
  <li>And so doth yours: your fault was not your folly;</li>
  <li>Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose,</li>
  <li>Subjected tribute to commanding love,</li>
  <li data-number="265">Against whose fury and unmatched force</li>
  <li>The aweless lion could not wage the fight,</li>
  <li>Nor keep his princely heart from Richard’s hand.</li>
  <li>He that perforce robs lions of their hearts</li>
  <li>May easily win a woman’s. Ay, my mother,</li>
  <li data-number="270">With all my heart I thank thee for my father!</li>
  <li>Who lives and dares but say thou didst not well</li>
  <li>When I was got, I’ll send his soul to hell.</li>
  <li>Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin,</li>
  <li>And they shall say, when Richard me begot,</li>
  <li data-number="275">If thou hadst said him nay, it had been sin.</li>
  <li>Who says it was, he lies, I say ’twas not.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt.
	
		LADY F.
		BAST.
	
</div>

</section>

</section>

<section class="act">

<h2>Act 2</h2>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 1</h3>

<h4>France. Before the town of Angiers.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter, before Angiers, Philip, King of France, Lewis the Dauphin, Constance, Arthur, with forces, at one door; at the other, Austria with forces.
	
		K. PHI.
		LEW.
		CONST.
		ARTH.
		AUST.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>Before Angiers well met, brave Austria.</li>
  <li>Arthur, that great forerunner of thy blood,</li>
  <li>Richard, that robb’d the lion of his heart,</li>
  <li>And fought the holy wars in Palestine,</li>
  <li data-number="5">By this brave duke came early to his grave;</li>
  <li>And for amends to his posterity,</li>
  <li>At our importance hither is he come</li>
  <li>To spread his colors, boy, in thy behalf,</li>
  <li>And to rebuke the usurpation</li>
  <li data-number="10">Of thy unnatural uncle, English John.</li>
  <li>Embrace him, love him, give him welcome hither.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li>God shall forgive you Coeur de Lion’s death</li>
  <li>The rather that you give his offspring life,</li>
  <li>Shadowing their right under your wings of war.</li>
  <li data-number="15">I give you welcome with a powerless hand.</li>
  <li>But with a heart full of unstained love.</li>
  <li>Welcome before the gates of Angiers, Duke.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>A noble boy! Who would not do thee right?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li>Upon thy cheek lay I this zealous kiss</li>
  <li data-number="20">As seal to this indenture of my love:</li>
  <li>That to my home I will no more return</li>
  <li>Till Angiers, and the right thou hast in France,</li>
  <li>Together with that pale, that white-fac’d shore,</li>
  <li>Whose foot spurns back the ocean’s roaring tides</li>
  <li data-number="25">And coops from other lands her islanders,</li>
  <li>Even till that England, hedg’d in with the main,</li>
  <li>That water-walled bulwark, still secure</li>
  <li>And confident from foreign purposes,</li>
  <li>Even till that utmost corner of the west</li>
  <li data-number="30">Salute thee for her king; till then, fair boy,</li>
  <li>Will I not think of home, but follow arms.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>O, take his mother’s thanks, a widow’s thanks,</li>
  <li>Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength</li>
  <li>To make a more requital to your love!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li data-number="35">The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords</li>
  <li>In such a just and charitable war.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>Well, then to work! Our cannon shall be bent</li>
  <li>Against the brows of this resisting town.</li>
  <li>Call for our chiefest men of discipline</li>
  <li data-number="40">To cull the plots of best advantages.</li>
  <li>We’ll lay before this town our royal bones,</li>
  <li>Wade to the market-place in Frenchmen’s blood,</li>
  <li>But we will make it subject to this boy.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>Stay for an answer to your embassy,</li>
  <li data-number="45">Lest unadvis’d you stain your swords with blood.</li>
  <li>My Lord Chatillion may from England bring</li>
  <li>That right in peace which here we urge in war,</li>
  <li>And then we shall repent each drop of blood</li>
  <li>That hot rash haste so indirectly shed.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Chatillion.
	
		CHAT.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li data-number="50">A wonder, lady! Lo upon thy wish</li>
  <li>Our messenger Chatillion is arriv’d!</li>
  <li>What England says, say briefly, gentle lord,</li>
  <li>We coldly pause for thee; Chatillion, speak.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CHAT.">
  <li>Then turn your forces from this paltry siege,</li>
  <li data-number="55">And stir them up against a mightier task.</li>
  <li>England, impatient of your just demands,</li>
  <li>Hath put himself in arms. The adverse winds,</li>
  <li>Whose leisure I have stay’d, have given him time</li>
  <li>To land his legions all as soon as I;</li>
  <li data-number="60">His marches are expedient to this town,</li>
  <li>His forces strong, his soldiers confident.</li>
  <li>With him along is come the mother-queen,</li>
  <li>An Ate, stirring him to blood and strife;</li>
  <li>With her her niece, the Lady Blanch of Spain;</li>
  <li data-number="65">With them a bastard of the king’s deceas’d,</li>
  <li>And all th’ unsettled humors of the land,</li>
  <li>Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,</li>
  <li>With ladies’ faces and fierce dragons’ spleens,</li>
  <li>Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,</li>
  <li data-number="70">Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,</li>
  <li>To make a hazard of new fortunes here.</li>
  <li>In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits</li>
  <li>Than now the English bottoms have waft o’er</li>
  <li>Did never float upon the swelling tide</li>
  <li data-number="75">To do offense and scathe in Christendom.</li>
  <li>The interruption of their churlish drums</li>
  <li>Cuts off more circumstance. They are at hand,</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Drum beats.
	
	
</li>
  <li>To parley or to fight, therefore prepare.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>How much unlook’d for is this expedition!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li data-number="80">By how much unexpected, by so much</li>
  <li>We must awake endeavor for defense,</li>
  <li>For courage mounteth with occasion.</li>
  <li>Let them be welcome then, we are prepar’d.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter King John of England, Bastard, Queen Elinor, Blanch, Pembroke, and others.
	
		K. JOHN.
		BAST.
		EL.
		BLANCH.
		PEM.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Peace be to France—if France in peace permit</li>
  <li data-number="85">Our just and lineal entrance to our own;</li>
  <li>If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to heaven,</li>
  <li>Whiles we, God’s wrathful agent, do correct</li>
  <li>Their proud contempt that beats his peace to heaven.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>Peace be to England, if that war return</li>
  <li data-number="90">From France to England, there to live in peace.</li>
  <li>England we love, and for that England’s sake</li>
  <li>With burden of our armor here we sweat.</li>
  <li>This toil of ours should be a work of thine;</li>
  <li>But thou from loving England art so far</li>
  <li data-number="95">That thou hast under-wrought his lawful king,</li>
  <li>Cut off the sequence of posterity,</li>
  <li>Outfaced infant state, and done a rape</li>
  <li>Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.</li>
  <li>Look here upon thy brother Geffrey’s face:</li>
  <li data-number="100">These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his;</li>
  <li>This little abstract doth contain that large</li>
  <li>Which died in Geffrey; and the hand of time</li>
  <li>Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume.</li>
  <li>That Geffrey was thy elder brother born,</li>
  <li data-number="105">And this his son; England was Geffrey’s right,</li>
  <li>And this is Geffrey’s in the name of God.</li>
  <li>How comes it then that thou art call’d a king,</li>
  <li>When living blood doth in these temples beat,</li>
  <li>Which owe the crown that thou o’ermasterest?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="110">From whom hast thou this great commission, France,</li>
  <li>To draw my answer from thy articles?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>From that supernal judge that stirs good thoughts</li>
  <li>In any breast of strong authority,</li>
  <li>To look into the blots and stains of right.</li>
  <li data-number="115">That judge hath made me guardian to this boy,</li>
  <li>Under whose warrant I impeach thy wrong,</li>
  <li>And by whose help I mean to chastise it.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Alack, thou dost usurp authority.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>Excuse it is to beat usurping down.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li data-number="120">Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>Let me make answer: thy usurping son.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>Out, insolent, thy bastard shall be king</li>
  <li>That thou mayst be a queen, and check the world!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>My bed was ever to thy son as true</li>
  <li data-number="125">As thine was to thy husband, and this boy</li>
  <li>Liker in feature to his father Geffrey</li>
  <li>Than thou and John in manners, being as like</li>
  <li>As rain to water, or devil to his dam.</li>
  <li>My boy a bastard? By my soul I think</li>
  <li data-number="130">His father never was so true begot—</li>
  <li>It cannot be, and if thou wert his mother.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>There’s a good mother, boy, that blots thy father.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>There’s a good grandame, boy, that would blot thee.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li>Peace!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-offset="2">Hear the crier.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li data-offset="5">What the devil art thou?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="135">One that will play the devil, sir, with you,</li>
  <li>And ’a may catch your hide and you alone.</li>
  <li>You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,</li>
  <li>Whose valor plucks dead lions by the beard;</li>
  <li>I’ll smoke your skin-coat and I catch you right.</li>
  <li data-number="140">Sirrah, look to’t, i’ faith I will, i’ faith.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BLANCH.">
  <li>O, well did he become that lion’s robe,</li>
  <li>That did disrobe the lion of that robe!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>It lies as sightly on the back of him</li>
  <li>As great Alcides’ shows upon an ass.</li>
  <li data-number="145">But, ass, I’ll take that burden from your back,</li>
  <li>Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li>What cracker is this same that deafs our ears</li>
  <li>With this abundance of superfluous breath?</li>
  <li>King Philip, determine what we shall do straight.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li data-number="150">Women and fools, break off your conference.</li>
  <li>King John, this is the very sum of all:</li>
  <li>England and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,</li>
  <li>In right of Arthur do I claim of thee.</li>
  <li>Wilt thou resign them and lay down thy arms?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="155">My life as soon. I do defy thee, France.</li>
  <li>Arthur of Britain, yield thee to my hand,</li>
  <li>And out of my dear love I’ll give thee more</li>
  <li>Than e’er the coward hand of France can win.</li>
  <li>Submit thee, boy.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li data-offset="4">Come to thy grandame, child.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li data-number="160">Do, child, go to it grandame, child,</li>
  <li>Give grandame kingdom, and it grandame will</li>
  <li>Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig.</li>
  <li>There’s a good grandame.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li data-offset="5">Good my mother, peace.</li>
  <li>I would that I were low laid in my grave,</li>
  <li data-number="165">I am not worth this coil that’s made for me.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>Now shame upon you, whe’er she does or no!</li>
  <li>His grandame’s wrongs, and not his mother’s shames,</li>
  <li>Draws those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes,</li>
  <li data-number="170">Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee;</li>
  <li>Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be brib’d</li>
  <li>To do him justice, and revenge on you.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth,</li>
  <li data-number="175">Call not me slanderer! Thou and thine usurp</li>
  <li>The dominations, royalties, and rights</li>
  <li>Of this oppressed boy. This is thy eldest son’s son,</li>
  <li>Infortunate in nothing but in thee.</li>
  <li>Thy sins are visited in this poor child,</li>
  <li data-number="180">The canon of the law is laid on him,</li>
  <li>Being but the second generation</li>
  <li>Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Bedlam, have done.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li data-offset="4">I have but this to say,</li>
  <li>That he is not only plagued for her sin,</li>
  <li data-number="185">But God hath made her sin and her the plague</li>
  <li>On this removed issue, plagued for her,</li>
  <li>And with her plague, her sin; his injury</li>
  <li>Her injury, the beadle to her sin—</li>
  <li>All punish’d in the person of this child,</li>
  <li data-number="190">And all for her. A plague upon her!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>Thou unadvised scold, I can produce</li>
  <li>A will that bars the title of thy son.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>Ay, who doubts that? A will! A wicked will,</li>
  <li>A woman’s will, a cank’red grandam’s will!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li data-number="195">Peace, lady, pause, or be more temperate.</li>
  <li>It ill beseems this presence to cry aim</li>
  <li>To these ill-tuned repetitions.</li>
  <li>Some trumpet summon hither to the walls</li>
  <li>These men of Angiers; let us hear them speak</li>
  <li data-number="200">Whose title they admit, Arthur’s or John’s.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Trumpet sounds. Enter Hubert and other Citizens upon the walls.
	
		HUB.
		Citizens
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Who is it that hath warn’d us to the walls?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>’Tis France, for England.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-offset="5">England for itself.</li>
  <li>You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects—</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>You loving men of Angiers, Arthur’s subjects,</li>
  <li data-number="205">Our trumpet call’d you to this gentle parle—</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>For our advantage—therefore hear us first:</li>
  <li>These flags of France, that are advanced here</li>
  <li>Before the eye and prospect of your town,</li>
  <li>Have hither march’d to your endamagement.</li>
  <li data-number="210">The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,</li>
  <li>And ready mounted are they to spit forth</li>
  <li>Their iron indignation ’gainst your walls;</li>
  <li>All preparation for a bloody siege</li>
  <li>And merciless proceeding by these French</li>
  <li data-number="215">Confronts your city’s eyes, your winking gates;</li>
  <li>And but for our approach those sleeping stones,</li>
  <li>That as a waist doth girdle you about,</li>
  <li>By the compulsion of their ordinance</li>
  <li>By this time from their fixed beds of lime</li>
  <li data-number="220">Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made</li>
  <li>For bloody power to rush upon your peace.</li>
  <li>But on the sight of us, your lawful King,</li>
  <li>Who painfully with much expedient march</li>
  <li>Have brought a countercheck before your gates,</li>
  <li data-number="225">To save unscratch’d your city’s threat’ned cheeks,</li>
  <li>Behold, the French amaz’d vouchsafe a parle,</li>
  <li>And now instead of bullets wrapp’d in fire,</li>
  <li>To make a shaking fever in your walls,</li>
  <li>They shoot but calm words folded up in smoke,</li>
  <li data-number="230">To make a faithless error in your ears;</li>
  <li>Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,</li>
  <li>And let us in—your King, whose labor’d spirits,</li>
  <li>Forewearied in this action of swift speed,</li>
  <li>Craves harborage within your city walls.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li data-number="235">When I have said, make answer to us both.</li>
  <li>Lo in this right hand, whose protection</li>
  <li>Is most divinely vow’d upon the right</li>
  <li>Of him it holds, stands young Plantagenet,</li>
  <li>Son to the elder brother of this man,</li>
  <li data-number="240">And king o’er him and all that he enjoys.</li>
  <li>For this down-trodden equity, we tread</li>
  <li>In warlike march these greens before your town,</li>
  <li>Being no further enemy to you</li>
  <li>Than the constraint of hospitable zeal</li>
  <li data-number="245">In the relief of this oppressed child</li>
  <li>Religiously provokes. Be pleased then</li>
  <li>To pay that duty which you truly owe</li>
  <li>To him that owes it, namely this young prince,</li>
  <li>And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear,</li>
  <li data-number="250">Save in aspect, hath all offense seal’d up;</li>
  <li>Our cannons’ malice vainly shall be spent</li>
  <li>Against th’ invulnerable clouds of heaven,</li>
  <li>And with a blessed and unvex’d retire,</li>
  <li>With unhack’d swords, and helmets all unbruis’d,</li>
  <li data-number="255">We will bear home that lusty blood again</li>
  <li>Which here we came to spout against your town,</li>
  <li>And leave your children, wives, and you in peace.</li>
  <li>But if you fondly pass our proffer’d offer,</li>
  <li>’Tis not the rounder of your old-fac’d walls</li>
  <li data-number="260">Can hide you from our messengers of war,</li>
  <li>Though all these English and their discipline</li>
  <li>Were harbor’d in their rude circumference.</li>
  <li>Then tell us, shall your city call us lord,</li>
  <li>In that behalf which we have challeng’d it?</li>
  <li data-number="265">Or shall we give the signal to our rage,</li>
  <li>And stalk in blood to our possession?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>In brief, we are the King of England’s subjects:</li>
  <li>For him, and in his right, we hold this town.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Acknowledge then the King, and let me in.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-number="270">That can we not; but he that proves the King,</li>
  <li>To him will we prove loyal. Till that time</li>
  <li>Have we ramm’d up our gates against the world.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Doth not the crown of England prove the King?</li>
  <li>And if not that, I bring you witnesses,</li>
  <li data-number="275">Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England’s breed—</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Bastards, and else.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>To verify our title with their lives.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>As many and as well-born bloods as those—</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Some bastards too.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li data-number="280">Stand in his face to contradict his claim.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Till you compound whose right is worthiest,</li>
  <li>We for the worthiest hold the right from both.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Then God forgive the sin of all those souls</li>
  <li>That to their everlasting residence,</li>
  <li data-number="285">Before the dew of evening fall, shall fleet</li>
  <li>In dreadful trial of our kingdom’s king!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>Amen, amen! Mount, chevaliers! To arms!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Saint George, that swing’d the dragon, and e’er since</li>
  <li>Sits on ’s horseback at mine hostess’ door,</li>
  <li>Teach us some fence!</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	To Austria.
	
		BAST.
		AUST.
	
</li>
  <li data-number="290" data-offset="5">Sirrah, were I at home,</li>
  <li>At your den, sirrah, with your lioness,</li>
  <li>I would set an ox-head to your lion’s hide,</li>
  <li>And make a monster of you.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li data-offset="6">Peace, no more.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>O, tremble! For you hear the lion roar.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="295">Up higher to the plain, where we’ll set forth</li>
  <li>In best appointment all our regiments.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Speed then to take advantage of the field.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>It shall be so, and at the other hill</li>
  <li>Command the rest to stand. God and our right!</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt. Hubert and Citizens remain above.
	
		K. PHI.
		LEW.
		CONST.
		ARTH.
		AUST.
		CHAT.
		K. JOHN.
		BAST.
		EL.
		BLANCH.
		PEM.
	
</div>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Here, after excursions, enter the Herald of France with Trumpets to the gates.
	
		F. HER.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="F. HER.">
  <li data-number="300">You men of Angiers, open wide your gates,</li>
  <li>And let young Arthur Duke of Britain in,</li>
  <li>Who by the hand of France this day hath made</li>
  <li>Much work for tears in many an English mother,</li>
  <li>Whose sons lie scattered on the bleeding ground.</li>
  <li data-number="305">Many a widow’s husband groveling lies,</li>
  <li>Coldly embracing the discolored earth,</li>
  <li>And victory with little loss doth play</li>
  <li>Upon the dancing banners of the French,</li>
  <li>Who are at hand, triumphantly displayed,</li>
  <li data-number="310">To enter conquerors, and to proclaim</li>
  <li>Arthur of Britain England’s King and yours.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter English Herald with Trumpet.
	
		E. HER.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="E. HER.">
  <li>Rejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your bells,</li>
  <li>King John, your King and England’s, doth approach,</li>
  <li>Commander of this hot malicious day.</li>
  <li data-number="315">Their armors, that march’d hence so silver-bright,</li>
  <li>Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen’s blood.</li>
  <li>There stuck no plume in any English crest</li>
  <li>That is removed by a staff of France;</li>
  <li>Our colors do return in those same hands</li>
  <li data-number="320">That did display them when we first march’d forth;</li>
  <li>And like a jolly troop of huntsmen come</li>
  <li>Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,</li>
  <li>Dy’d in the dying slaughter of their foes.</li>
  <li>Open your gates and give the victors way.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-number="325">Heralds, from off our tow’rs we might behold,</li>
  <li>From first to last, the onset and retire</li>
  <li>Of both your armies, whose equality</li>
  <li>By our best eyes cannot be censured.</li>
  <li>Blood hath bought blood, and blows have answer’d blows;</li>
  <li data-number="330">Strength match’d with strength, and power confronted power:</li>
  <li>Both are alike, and both alike we like.</li>
  <li>One must prove greatest. While they weigh so even,</li>
  <li>We hold our town for neither; yet for both.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter the two Kings with their powers at several doors.
	
		K. PHI.
		LEW.
		CONST.
		ARTH.
		AUST.
		CHAT.
		K. JOHN.
		BAST.
		EL.
		BLANCH.
		PEM.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?</li>
  <li data-number="335">Say, shall the current of our right roam on?</li>
  <li>Whose passage, vex’d with thy impediment,</li>
  <li>Shall leave his native channel and o’erswell</li>
  <li>With course disturb’d even thy confining shores,</li>
  <li>Unless thou let his silver water keep</li>
  <li data-number="340">A peaceful progress to the ocean.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>England, thou hast not sav’d one drop of blood</li>
  <li>In this hot trial more than we of France,</li>
  <li>Rather lost more. And by this hand I swear,</li>
  <li>That sways the earth this climate overlooks,</li>
  <li data-number="345">Before we will lay down our just-borne arms</li>
  <li>We’ll put thee down, ’gainst whom these arms we bear,</li>
  <li>Or add a royal number to the dead,</li>
  <li>Gracing the scroll that tells of this war’s loss</li>
  <li>With slaughter coupled to the name of kings.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="350">Ha, majesty! How high thy glory tow’rs</li>
  <li>When the rich blood of kings is set on fire!</li>
  <li>O now doth Death line his dead chaps with steel,</li>
  <li>The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs,</li>
  <li>And now he feasts, mousing the flesh of men,</li>
  <li data-number="355">In undetermin’d differences of kings.</li>
  <li>Why stand these royal fronts amazed thus?</li>
  <li>Cry “havoc,” kings! Back to the stained field,</li>
  <li>You equal potents, fiery kindled spirits!</li>
  <li>Then let confusion of one part confirm</li>
  <li data-number="360">The other’s peace. Till then, blows, blood, and death!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Whose party do the townsmen yet admit?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>Speak, citizens, for England. Who’s your king?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>The King of England, when we know the King.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>Know him in us, that here hold up his right.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="365">In us, that are our own great deputy,</li>
  <li>And bear possession of our person here,</li>
  <li>Lord of our presence, Angiers, and of you.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>A greater pow’r than we denies all this,</li>
  <li>And till it be undoubted, we do lock</li>
  <li data-number="370">Our former scruple in our strong-barr’d gates,</li>
  <li>Kings of our fear, until our fears, resolv’d,</li>
  <li>Be by some certain king purg’d and depos’d.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings,</li>
  <li>And stand securely on their battlements</li>
  <li data-number="375">As in a theatre, whence they gape and point</li>
  <li>At your industrious scenes and acts of death.</li>
  <li>Your royal presences be rul’d by me:</li>
  <li>Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,</li>
  <li>Be friends awhile, and both conjointly bend</li>
  <li data-number="380">Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town.</li>
  <li>By east and west let France and England mount</li>
  <li>Their battering cannon charged to the mouths,</li>
  <li>Till their soul-fearing clamors have brawl’d down</li>
  <li>The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city.</li>
  <li data-number="385">I’d play incessantly upon these jades,</li>
  <li>Even till unfenced desolation</li>
  <li>Leave them as naked as the vulgar air.</li>
  <li>That done, dissever your united strengths,</li>
  <li>And part your mingled colors once again,</li>
  <li data-number="390">Turn face to face and bloody point to point;</li>
  <li>Then, in a moment, Fortune shall cull forth</li>
  <li>Out of one side her happy minion,</li>
  <li>To whom in favor she shall give the day,</li>
  <li>And kiss him with a glorious victory.</li>
  <li data-number="395">How like you this wild counsel, mighty states?</li>
  <li>Smacks it not something of the policy?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads,</li>
  <li>I like it well. France, shall we knit our pow’rs,</li>
  <li>And lay this Angiers even with the ground,</li>
  <li data-number="400">Then after fight who shall be king of it?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>And if thou hast the mettle of a king,</li>
  <li>Being wrong’d as we are by this peevish town,</li>
  <li>Turn thou the mouth of thy artillery,</li>
  <li>As we will ours, against these saucy walls,</li>
  <li data-number="405">And when that we have dash’d them to the ground,</li>
  <li>Why then defy each other, and pell-mell</li>
  <li>Make work upon ourselves, for heaven or hell.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>Let it be so. Say, where will you assault?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>We from the west will send destruction</li>
  <li>Into this city’s bosom.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li>I from the north.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li data-offset="4">Our thunder from the south</li>
  <li>Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Aside.
	
		BAST.
	
</li>
  <li>O prudent discipline! From north to south—</li>
  <li>Austria and France shoot in each other’s mouth.</li>
  <li data-number="415">I’ll stir them to it.—Come, away, away!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Hear us, great kings! Vouchsafe awhile to stay,</li>
  <li>And I shall show you peace and fair-fac’d league;</li>
  <li>Win you this city without stroke or wound,</li>
  <li>Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds,</li>
  <li data-number="420">That here come sacrifices for the field.</li>
  <li>Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Speak on with favor, we are bent to hear.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch,</li>
  <li>Is near to England. Look upon the years</li>
  <li data-number="425">Of Lewis the Dauphin and that lovely maid.</li>
  <li>If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,</li>
  <li>Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch?</li>
  <li>If zealous love should go in search of virtue,</li>
  <li>Where should he find it purer than in Blanch?</li>
  <li data-number="430">If love ambitious sought a match of birth,</li>
  <li>Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanch?</li>
  <li>Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,</li>
  <li>Is the young Dauphin every way complete:</li>
  <li>If not complete of, say he is not she,</li>
  <li data-number="435">And she again wants nothing, to name want,</li>
  <li>If want it be not that she is not he.</li>
  <li>He is the half part of a blessed man,</li>
  <li>Left to be finished by such as she,</li>
  <li>And she a fair divided excellence,</li>
  <li data-number="440">Whose fullness of perfection lies in him.</li>
  <li>O, two such silver currents when they join</li>
  <li>Do glorify the banks that bound them in;</li>
  <li>And two such shores to two such streams made one,</li>
  <li>Two such controlling bounds shall you be, kings,</li>
  <li data-number="445">To these two princes, if you marry them.</li>
  <li>This union shall do more than battery can</li>
  <li>To our fast-closed gates; for at this match,</li>
  <li>With swifter spleen than powder can enforce,</li>
  <li>The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope,</li>
  <li data-number="450">And give you entrance; but without this match,</li>
  <li>The sea enraged is not half so deaf,</li>
  <li>Lions more confident, mountains and rocks</li>
  <li>More free from motion, no, not Death himself</li>
  <li>In mortal fury half so peremptory,</li>
  <li>As we to keep this city.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="455" data-offset="5">Here’s a stay</li>
  <li>That shakes the rotten carcass of old Death</li>
  <li>Out of his rags! Here’s a large mouth indeed,</li>
  <li>That spits forth death and mountains, rocks and seas,</li>
  <li>Talks as familiarly of roaring lions</li>
  <li data-number="460">As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs!</li>
  <li>What cannoneer begot this lusty blood?</li>
  <li>He speaks plain cannon-fire, and smoke, and bounce,</li>
  <li>He gives the bastinado with his tongue;</li>
  <li>Our ears are cudgell’d—not a word of his</li>
  <li data-number="465">But buffets better than a fist of France.</li>
  <li>’Zounds, I was never so bethump’d with words</li>
  <li>Since I first call’d my brother’s father dad.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>Son, list to this conjunction, make this match,</li>
  <li>Give with our niece a dowry large enough,</li>
  <li data-number="470">For by this knot thou shalt so surely tie</li>
  <li>Thy now unsur’d assurance to the crown,</li>
  <li>That yon green boy shall have no sun to ripe</li>
  <li>The bloom that promiseth a mighty fruit.</li>
  <li>I see a yielding in the looks of France;</li>
  <li data-number="475">Mark how they whisper. Urge them while their souls</li>
  <li>Are capable of this ambition,</li>
  <li>Lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath</li>
  <li>Of soft petitions, pity, and remorse,</li>
  <li>Cool and congeal again to what it was.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-number="480">Why answer not the double majesties</li>
  <li>This friendly treaty of our threat’ned town?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>Speak England first, that hath been forward first</li>
  <li>To speak unto this city: what say you?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>If that the Dauphin there, thy princely son,</li>
  <li data-number="485">Can in this book of beauty read, “I love,”</li>
  <li>Her dowry shall weigh equal with a queen;</li>
  <li>For Anjou and fair Touraine, Maine, Poictiers,</li>
  <li>And all that we upon this side the sea</li>
  <li>(Except this city now by us besieg’d)</li>
  <li data-number="490">Find liable to our crown and dignity,</li>
  <li>Shall gild her bridal bed and make her rich</li>
  <li>In titles, honors, and promotions,</li>
  <li>As she in beauty, education, blood,</li>
  <li>Holds hand with any princess of the world.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li data-number="495">What say’st thou, boy? Look in the lady’s face.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>I do, my lord, and in her eye I find</li>
  <li>A wonder, or a wondrous miracle,</li>
  <li>The shadow of myself form’d in her eye,</li>
  <li>Which being but the shadow of your son,</li>
  <li data-number="500">Becomes a sun and makes your son a shadow.</li>
  <li>I do protest I never lov’d myself</li>
  <li>Till now infixed I beheld myself</li>
  <li>Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Whispers with Blanch.
	
		LEW.
		BLANCH.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Aside.
	
		BAST.
	
</li>
  <li>Drawn in the flattering table of her eye!</li>
  <li data-number="505">Hang’d in the frowning wrinkle of her brow!</li>
  <li>And quarter’d in her heart! He doth espy</li>
  <li>Himself love’s traitor. This is pity now,</li>
  <li>That, hang’d and drawn and quarter’d there should be</li>
  <li>In such a love so vile a lout as he.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BLANCH.">
  <li data-number="510">My uncle’s will in this respect is mine.</li>
  <li>If he see aught in you that makes him like,</li>
  <li>That any thing he sees, which moves his liking,</li>
  <li>I can with ease translate it to my will;</li>
  <li>Or if you will, to speak more properly,</li>
  <li data-number="515">I will enforce it eas’ly to my love.</li>
  <li>Further I will not flatter you, my lord,</li>
  <li>That all I see in you is worthy love,</li>
  <li>Than this: that nothing do I see in you,</li>
  <li>Though churlish thoughts themselves should be your judge,</li>
  <li data-number="520">That I can find should merit any hate.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>What say these young ones? What say you, my niece?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BLANCH.">
  <li>That she is bound in honor still to do</li>
  <li>What you in wisdom still vouchsafe to say.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Speak then, Prince Dauphin, can you love this lady?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li data-number="525">Nay, ask me if I can refrain from love,</li>
  <li>For I do love her most unfeignedly.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Then do I give Volquessen, Touraine, Maine,</li>
  <li>Poictiers, and Anjou, these five provinces,</li>
  <li>With her to thee, and this addition more,</li>
  <li data-number="530">Full thirty thousand marks of English coin.</li>
  <li>Philip of France, if thou be pleas’d withal,</li>
  <li>Command thy son and daughter to join hands.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>It likes us well, young princes; close your hands.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li>And your lips too, for I am well assur’d</li>
  <li data-number="535">That I did so when I was first assur’d.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>Now, citizens of Angiers, ope your gates,</li>
  <li>Let in that amity which you have made,</li>
  <li>For at Saint Mary’s Chapel presently</li>
  <li>The rites of marriage shall be solemniz’d.</li>
  <li data-number="540">Is not the Lady Constance in this troop?</li>
  <li>I know she is not, for this match made up</li>
  <li>Her presence would have interrupted much.</li>
  <li>Where is she and her son? Tell me, who knows.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>She is sad and passionate at your Highness’ tent.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li data-number="545">And by my faith, this league that we have made</li>
  <li>Will give her sadness very little cure.</li>
  <li>Brother of England, how may we content</li>
  <li>This widow lady? In her right we came,</li>
  <li>Which we, God knows, have turn’d another way,</li>
  <li>To our own vantage.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="550" data-offset="4">We will heal up all,</li>
  <li>For we’ll create young Arthur Duke of Britain</li>
  <li>And Earl of Richmond, and this rich fair town</li>
  <li>We make him lord of. Call the Lady Constance;</li>
  <li>Some speedy messenger bid her repair</li>
  <li data-number="555">To our solemnity. I trust we shall,</li>
  <li>If not fill up the measure of her will,</li>
  <li>Yet in some measure satisfy her so</li>
  <li>That we shall stop her exclamation.</li>
  <li>Go we, as well as haste will suffer us,</li>
  <li data-number="560">To this unlook’d-for, unprepared pomp.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt all but the Bastard.
	
		K. PHI.
		K. JOHN.
		LEW.
		CONST.
		ARTH.
		AUST.
		CHAT.
		EL.
		BLANCH.
		PEM.
		HUB.
		Citizens
		E. HER.
		F. HER.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Mad world, mad kings, mad composition!</li>
  <li>John, to stop Arthur’s title in the whole,</li>
  <li>Hath willingly departed with a part,</li>
  <li>And France, whose armor conscience buckled on,</li>
  <li data-number="565">Whom zeal and charity brought to the field</li>
  <li>As God’s own soldier, rounded in the ear</li>
  <li>With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil,</li>
  <li>That broker that still breaks the pate of faith,</li>
  <li>That daily break-vow, he that wins of all,</li>
  <li data-number="570">Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids,</li>
  <li>Who having no external thing to lose</li>
  <li>But the word “maid,” cheats the poor maid of that,</li>
  <li>That smooth-fac’d gentleman, tickling commodity,</li>
  <li>Commodity, the bias of the world—</li>
  <li data-number="575">The world, who of itself is peized well,</li>
  <li>Made to run even upon even ground,</li>
  <li>Till this advantage, this vile-drawing bias,</li>
  <li>This sway of motion, this commodity,</li>
  <li>Makes it take head from all indifferency,</li>
  <li data-number="580">From all direction, purpose, course, intent—</li>
  <li>And this same bias, this commodity,</li>
  <li>This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word,</li>
  <li>Clapp’d on the outward eye of fickle France,</li>
  <li>Hath drawn him from his own determin’d aid,</li>
  <li data-number="585">From a resolv’d and honorable war</li>
  <li>To a most base and vile-concluded peace.</li>
  <li>And why rail I on this commodity?</li>
  <li>But for because he hath not woo’d me yet:</li>
  <li>Not that I have the power to clutch my hand</li>
  <li data-number="590">When his fair angels would salute my palm,</li>
  <li>But for my hand, as unattempted yet,</li>
  <li>Like a poor beggar, raileth on the rich.</li>
  <li>Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail,</li>
  <li>And say there is no sin but to be rich;</li>
  <li data-number="595">And being rich, my virtue then shall be</li>
  <li>To say there is no vice but beggary.</li>
  <li>Since kings break faith upon commodity,</li>
  <li>Gain, be my lord, for I will worship thee.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exit.
	
		BAST.
	
</div>

</section>

</section>

<section class="act">

<h2>Act 3</h2>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 1</h3>

<h4>The French King’s tent.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Constance, Arthur, and Salisbury.
	
		CONST.
		ARTH.
		SAL.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>Gone to be married? Gone to swear a peace?</li>
  <li>False blood to false blood join’d! Gone to be friends?</li>
  <li>Shall Lewis have Blanch, and Blanch those provinces?</li>
  <li>It is not so, thou hast misspoke, misheard;</li>
  <li data-number="5">Be well advis’d, tell o’er thy tale again.</li>
  <li>It cannot be, thou dost but say ’tis so.</li>
  <li>I trust I may not trust thee, for thy word</li>
  <li>Is but the vain breath of a common man.</li>
  <li>Believe me, I do not believe thee, man,</li>
  <li data-number="10">I have a king’s oath to the contrary.</li>
  <li>Thou shalt be punish’d for thus frighting me,</li>
  <li>For I am sick and capable of fears,</li>
  <li>Oppress’d with wrongs, and therefore full of fears,</li>
  <li>A widow, husbandless, subject to fears,</li>
  <li data-number="15">A woman, naturally born to fears;</li>
  <li>And though thou now confess thou didst but jest,</li>
  <li>With my vex’d spirits I cannot take a truce,</li>
  <li>But they will quake and tremble all this day.</li>
  <li>What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head?</li>
  <li data-number="20">Why dost thou look so sadly on my son?</li>
  <li>What means that hand upon that breast of thine?</li>
  <li>Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,</li>
  <li>Like a proud river peering o’er his bounds?</li>
  <li>Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words?</li>
  <li data-number="25">Then speak again, not all thy former tale,</li>
  <li>But this one word, whether thy tale be true.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>As true as I believe you think them false</li>
  <li>That give you cause to prove my saying true.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow,</li>
  <li data-number="30">Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die,</li>
  <li>And let belief and life encounter so</li>
  <li>As doth the fury of two desperate men,</li>
  <li>Which in the very meeting fall, and die.</li>
  <li>Lewis marry Blanch? O boy, then where art thou?</li>
  <li data-number="35">France friend with England, what becomes of me?</li>
  <li>Fellow, be gone! I cannot brook thy sight,</li>
  <li>This news hath made thee a most ugly man.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>What other harm have I, good lady, done,</li>
  <li>But spoke the harm that is by others done?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li data-number="40">Which harm within itself so heinous is</li>
  <li>As it makes harmful all that speak of it.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li>I do beseech you, madam, be content.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>If thou that bid’st me be content wert grim,</li>
  <li>Ugly, and sland’rous to thy mother’s womb,</li>
  <li data-number="45">Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains,</li>
  <li>Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,</li>
  <li>Patch’d with foul moles and eye-offending marks,</li>
  <li>I would not care, I then would be content,</li>
  <li>For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou</li>
  <li data-number="50">Become thy great birth nor deserve a crown.</li>
  <li>But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy,</li>
  <li>Nature and Fortune join’d to make thee great.</li>
  <li>Of Nature’s gifts thou mayst with lilies boast,</li>
  <li>And with the half-blown rose. But Fortune, O,</li>
  <li data-number="55">She is corrupted, chang’d, and won from thee;</li>
  <li>Sh’ adulterates hourly with thine uncle John,</li>
  <li>And with her golden hand hath pluck’d on France</li>
  <li>To tread down fair respect of sovereignty,</li>
  <li>And made his majesty the bawd to theirs.</li>
  <li data-number="60">France is a bawd to Fortune and King John,</li>
  <li>That strumpet Fortune, that usurping John!</li>
  <li>Tell me, thou fellow, is not France forsworn?</li>
  <li>Envenom him with words, or get thee gone,</li>
  <li>And leave those woes alone, which I alone</li>
  <li>Am bound to underbear.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li data-number="65" data-offset="5">Pardon me, madam,</li>
  <li>I may not go without you to the kings.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>Thou mayst, thou shalt, I will not go with thee.</li>
  <li>I will instruct my sorrows to be proud,</li>
  <li>For grief is proud and makes his owner stoop.</li>
  <li data-number="70">To me and to the state of my great grief</li>
  <li>Let kings assemble; for my grief’s so great</li>
  <li>That no supporter but the huge firm earth</li>
  <li>Can hold it up.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Throws herself on the ground.
	
		CONST.
	
</li>
  <li>Here I and sorrows sit;</li>
  <li data-number="75">Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter King John, King Philip of France, Lewis the Dauphin, Blanch, Elinor, Philip the Bastard, Austria, and Attendants.
	
		K. JOHN.
		K. PHI.
		LEW.
		BLANCH.
		EL.
		BAST.
		AUST.
		Attendants
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>’Tis true, fair daughter, and this blessed day</li>
  <li>Ever in France shall be kept festival.</li>
  <li>To solemnize this day the glorious sun</li>
  <li>Stays in his course and plays the alchemist,</li>
  <li data-number="80">Turning with splendor of his precious eye</li>
  <li>The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold.</li>
  <li>The yearly course that brings this day about</li>
  <li>Shall never see it but a holy day.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>A wicked day, and not a holy day!</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Rising.
	
		CONST.
	
</li>
  <li data-number="85">What hath this day deserv’d? What hath it done,</li>
  <li>That it in golden letters should be set</li>
  <li>Among the high tides in the calendar?</li>
  <li>Nay, rather turn this day out of the week,</li>
  <li>This day of shame, oppression, perjury.</li>
  <li data-number="90">Or if it must stand still, let wives with child</li>
  <li>Pray that their burdens may not fall this day,</li>
  <li>Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross’d;</li>
  <li>But on this day let seamen fear no wrack;</li>
  <li>No bargains break that are not this day made:</li>
  <li data-number="95">This day all things begun come to ill end,</li>
  <li>Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>By heaven, lady, you shall have no cause</li>
  <li>To curse the fair proceedings of this day.</li>
  <li>Have I not pawn’d to you my majesty?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li data-number="100">You have beguil’d me with a counterfeit</li>
  <li>Resembling majesty, which being touch’d and tried,</li>
  <li>Proves valueless. You are forsworn, forsworn!</li>
  <li>You came in arms to spill mine enemies’ blood,</li>
  <li>But now in arms you strengthen it with yours.</li>
  <li data-number="105">The grappling vigor and rough frown of war</li>
  <li>Is cold in amity and painted peace,</li>
  <li>And our oppression hath made up this league.</li>
  <li>Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjur’d kings!</li>
  <li>A widow cries; be husband to me, heavens!</li>
  <li data-number="110">Let not the hours of this ungodly day</li>
  <li>Wear out the day in peace; but ere sunset,</li>
  <li>Set armed discord ’twixt these perjur’d kings!</li>
  <li>Hear me, O, hear me!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li data-offset="5">Lady Constance, peace!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>War, war, no peace! Peace is to me a war.</li>
  <li data-number="115">O Lymoges, O Austria! Thou dost shame</li>
  <li>That bloody spoil. Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward!</li>
  <li>Thou little valiant, great in villainy!</li>
  <li>Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!</li>
  <li>Thou Fortune’s champion that dost never fight</li>
  <li data-number="120">But when her humorous ladyship is by</li>
  <li>To teach thee safety! Thou art perjur’d too,</li>
  <li>And sooth’st up greatness. What a fool art thou,</li>
  <li>A ramping fool, to brag and stamp and swear</li>
  <li>Upon my party! Thou cold-blooded slave,</li>
  <li data-number="125">Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side?</li>
  <li>Been sworn my soldier, bidding me depend</li>
  <li>Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength,</li>
  <li>And dost thou now fall over to my foes?</li>
  <li>Thou wear a lion’s hide! Doff it for shame,</li>
  <li data-number="130">And hang a calve’s-skin on those recreant limbs.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li>O, that a man should speak those words to me!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>And hang a calve’s-skin on those recreant limbs.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li>Thou dar’st not say so, villain, for thy life.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>And hang a calve’s-skin on those recreant limbs.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="135">We like not this, thou dost forget thyself.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Pandulph.
	
		PAND.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>Here comes the holy legate of the Pope.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li>Hail, you anointed deputies of heaven!</li>
  <li>To thee, King John, my holy errand is:</li>
  <li>I Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal,</li>
  <li data-number="140">And from Pope Innocent the legate here,</li>
  <li>Do in his name religiously demand</li>
  <li>Why thou against the Church, our holy mother,</li>
  <li>So willfully dost spurn; and force perforce</li>
  <li>Keep Stephen Langton, chosen Archbishop</li>
  <li data-number="145">Of Canterbury, from that holy see?</li>
  <li>This, in our foresaid Holy Father’s name,</li>
  <li>Pope Innocent, I do demand of thee.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>What earthy name to interrogatories</li>
  <li>Can taste the free breath of a sacred king?</li>
  <li data-number="150">Thou canst not, Cardinal, devise a name</li>
  <li>So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous,</li>
  <li>To charge me to an answer, as the Pope.</li>
  <li>Tell him this tale, and from the mouth of England</li>
  <li>Add thus much more, that no Italian priest</li>
  <li data-number="155">Shall tithe or toll in our dominions;</li>
  <li>But as we, under God, are supreme head,</li>
  <li>So under Him that great supremacy,</li>
  <li>Where we do reign, we will alone uphold</li>
  <li>Without th’ assistance of a mortal hand.</li>
  <li data-number="160">So tell the Pope, all reverence set apart</li>
  <li>To him and his usurp’d authority.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>Brother of England, you blaspheme in this.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Though you and all the kings of Christendom</li>
  <li>Are led so grossly by this meddling priest,</li>
  <li data-number="165">Dreading the curse that money may buy out,</li>
  <li>And by the merit of vild gold, dross, dust,</li>
  <li>Purchase corrupted pardon of a man</li>
  <li>Who in that sale sells pardon from himself;</li>
  <li>Though you, and all the rest so grossly led,</li>
  <li data-number="170">This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish,</li>
  <li>Yet I alone, alone do me oppose</li>
  <li>Against the Pope, and count his friends my foes.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li>Then, by the lawful power that I have,</li>
  <li>Thou shalt stand curs’d and excommunicate,</li>
  <li data-number="175">And blessed shall he be that doth revolt</li>
  <li>From his allegiance to an heretic,</li>
  <li>And meritorious shall that hand be call’d,</li>
  <li>Canonized and worshipp’d as a saint,</li>
  <li>That takes away by any secret course</li>
  <li>Thy hateful life.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li data-number="180" data-offset="4">O, lawful let it be</li>
  <li>That I have room with Rome to curse a while!</li>
  <li>Good father Cardinal, cry thou amen</li>
  <li>To my keen curses; for without my wrong</li>
  <li>There is no tongue hath power to curse him right.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li data-number="185">There’s law and warrant, lady, for my curse.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>And for mine too: when law can do no right,</li>
  <li>Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong;</li>
  <li>Law cannot give my child his kingdom here,</li>
  <li>For he that holds his kingdom holds the law;</li>
  <li data-number="190">Therefore since law itself is perfect wrong,</li>
  <li>How can the law forbid my tongue to curse?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li>Philip of France, on peril of a curse,</li>
  <li>Let go the hand of that arch-heretic,</li>
  <li>And raise the power of France upon his head,</li>
  <li data-number="195">Unless he do submit himself to Rome.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>Look’st thou pale, France? Do not let go thy hand.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>Look to that, devil, lest that France repent,</li>
  <li>And by disjoining hands hell lose a soul.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li>King Philip, listen to the Cardinal.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="200">And hang a calve’s-skin on his recreant limbs.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li>Well, ruffian, I must pocket up these wrongs,</li>
  <li>Because—</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-offset="2">Your breeches best may carry them.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Philip, what say’st thou to the Cardinal?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>What should he say, but as the Cardinal?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li data-number="205">Bethink you, father, for the difference</li>
  <li>Is purchase of a heavy curse from Rome,</li>
  <li>Or the light loss of England for a friend.</li>
  <li>Forgo the easier.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BLANCH.">
  <li data-offset="4">That’s the curse of Rome.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>O Lewis, stand fast! The devil tempts thee here</li>
  <li data-number="210">In likeness of a new untrimmed bride.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BLANCH.">
  <li>The Lady Constance speaks not from her faith,</li>
  <li>But from her need.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li data-offset="4">O, if thou grant my need,</li>
  <li>Which only lives but by the death of faith,</li>
  <li>That need must needs infer this principle,</li>
  <li data-number="215">That faith would live again by death of need.</li>
  <li>O then tread down my need, and faith mounts up;</li>
  <li>Keep my need up, and faith is trodden down!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>The King is mov’d, and answers not to this.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>O, be remov’d from him, and answer well!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li data-number="220">Do so, King Philip, hang no more in doubt.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Hang nothing but a calve’s-skin, most sweet lout.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>I am perplex’d, and know not what to say.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li>What canst thou say but will perplex thee more,</li>
  <li>If thou stand excommunicate and curs’d?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li data-number="225">Good reverend father, make my person yours,</li>
  <li>And tell me how you would bestow yourself.</li>
  <li>This royal hand and mine are newly knit,</li>
  <li>And the conjunction of our inward souls</li>
  <li>Married in league, coupled, and link’d together</li>
  <li data-number="230">With all religious strength of sacred vows.</li>
  <li>The latest breath that gave the sound of words</li>
  <li>Was deep-sworn faith, peace, amity, true love</li>
  <li>Between our kingdoms and our royal selves,</li>
  <li>And even before this truce, but new before,</li>
  <li data-number="235">No longer than we well could wash our hands</li>
  <li>To clap this royal bargain up of peace,</li>
  <li>Heaven knows they were besmear’d and over-stain’d</li>
  <li>With slaughter’s pencil—where revenge did paint</li>
  <li>The fearful difference of incensed kings—</li>
  <li data-number="240">And shall these hands, so lately purg’d of blood,</li>
  <li>So newly join’d in love, so strong in both,</li>
  <li>Unyoke this seizure and this kind regreet?</li>
  <li>Play fast and loose with faith? So jest with heaven?</li>
  <li>Make such unconstant children of ourselves,</li>
  <li data-number="245">As now again to snatch our palm from palm,</li>
  <li>Unswear faith sworn, and on the marriage-bed</li>
  <li>Of smiling peace to march a bloody host,</li>
  <li>And make a riot on the gentle brow</li>
  <li>Of true sincerity? O holy sir,</li>
  <li data-number="250">My reverend father, let it not be so!</li>
  <li>Out of your grace devise, ordain, impose</li>
  <li>Some gentle order, and then we shall be blest</li>
  <li>To do your pleasure and continue friends.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li>All form is formless, order orderless,</li>
  <li data-number="255">Save what is opposite to England’s love.</li>
  <li>Therefore to arms! Be champion of our Church,</li>
  <li>Or let the Church, our mother, breathe her curse,</li>
  <li>A mother’s curse, on her revolting son.</li>
  <li>France, thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue,</li>
  <li data-number="260">A cased lion by the mortal paw,</li>
  <li>A fasting tiger safer by the tooth,</li>
  <li>Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li>So mak’st thou faith an enemy to faith,</li>
  <li data-number="265">And like a civil war set’st oath to oath,</li>
  <li>Thy tongue against thy tongue. O, let thy vow</li>
  <li>First made to heaven, first be to heaven perform’d,</li>
  <li>That is, to be the champion of our Church!</li>
  <li>What since thou swor’st is sworn against thyself,</li>
  <li data-number="270">And may not be performed by thyself,</li>
  <li>For that which thou hast sworn to do amiss</li>
  <li>Is not amiss when it is truly done;</li>
  <li>And being not done, where doing tends to ill,</li>
  <li>The truth is then most done not doing it.</li>
  <li data-number="275">The better act of purposes mistook</li>
  <li>Is to mistake again; though indirect,</li>
  <li>Yet indirection thereby grows direct,</li>
  <li>And falsehood falsehood cures, as fire cools fire</li>
  <li>Within the scorched veins of one new burn’d.</li>
  <li data-number="280">It is religion that doth make vows kept,</li>
  <li>But thou hast sworn against religion,</li>
  <li>By what thou swear’st against the thing thou swear’st,</li>
  <li>And mak’st an oath the surety for thy truth</li>
  <li>Against an oath; the truth thou art unsure</li>
  <li data-number="285">To swear, swears only not to be forsworn,</li>
  <li>Else what a mockery should it be to swear!</li>
  <li>But thou dost swear only to be forsworn,</li>
  <li>And most forsworn, to keep what thou dost swear;</li>
  <li>Therefore thy later vows, against thy first,</li>
  <li data-number="290">Is in thyself rebellion to thyself;</li>
  <li>And better conquest never canst thou make</li>
  <li>Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts</li>
  <li>Against these giddy loose suggestions;</li>
  <li>Upon which better part our pray’rs come in,</li>
  <li data-number="295">If thou vouchsafe them. But if not, then know</li>
  <li>The peril of our curses light on thee</li>
  <li>So heavy as thou shalt not shake them off,</li>
  <li>But in despair die under their black weight.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="AUST.">
  <li>Rebellion, flat rebellion!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-offset="5">Will’t not be?</li>
  <li>Will not a calve’s-skin stop that mouth of thine?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>Father, to arms!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BLANCH.">
  <li data-offset="4">Upon thy wedding-day?</li>
  <li>Against the blood that thou hast married?</li>
  <li>What, shall our feast be kept with slaughtered men?</li>
  <li>Shall braying trumpets and loud churlish drums,</li>
  <li data-number="305">Clamors of hell, be measures to our pomp?</li>
  <li>O husband, hear me! Ay, alack, how new</li>
  <li>Is “husband” in my mouth! Even for that name,</li>
  <li>Which till this time my tongue did ne’er pronounce,</li>
  <li>Upon my knee I beg, go not to arms</li>
  <li>Against mine uncle.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li data-number="310" data-offset="4">O, upon my knee,</li>
  <li>Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee,</li>
  <li>Thou virtuous Dauphin, alter not the doom</li>
  <li>Forethought by heaven!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BLANCH.">
  <li>Now shall I see thy love. What motive may</li>
  <li data-number="315">Be stronger with thee than the name of wife?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>That which upholdeth him that thee upholds,</li>
  <li>His honor. O, thine honor, Lewis, thine honor!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>I muse your Majesty doth seem so cold,</li>
  <li>When such profound respects do pull you on.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li data-number="320">I will denounce a curse upon his head.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>Thou shalt not need. England, I will fall from thee.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>O fair return of banish’d majesty!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>O foul revolt of French inconstancy!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>France, thou shalt rue this hour within this hour.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="325">Old Time the clock-setter, that bald sexton Time!</li>
  <li>Is it as he will? Well then, France shall rue.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BLANCH.">
  <li>The sun’s o’ercast with blood; fair day, <foreign xml:lang="fr">adieu</foreign>!</li>
  <li>Which is the side that I must go withal?</li>
  <li>I am with both, each army hath a hand,</li>
  <li data-number="330">And in their rage, I having hold of both,</li>
  <li>They whirl asunder and dismember me.</li>
  <li>Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win;</li>
  <li>Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose;</li>
  <li>Father, I may not wish the fortune thine;</li>
  <li data-number="335">Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive:</li>
  <li>Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose;</li>
  <li>Assured loss before the match be play’d.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>Lady, with me, with me thy fortune lies.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BLANCH.">
  <li>There where my fortune lives, there my life dies.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="340">Cousin, go draw our puissance together.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Exit Bastard.
	
		BAST.
	
</li>
  <li>France, I am burn’d up with inflaming wrath,</li>
  <li>A rage whose heat hath this condition,</li>
  <li>That nothing can allay, nothing but blood,</li>
  <li>The blood and dearest-valued blood of France.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li data-number="345">Thy rage shall burn thee up, and thou shalt turn</li>
  <li>To ashes, ere our blood shall quench that fire.</li>
  <li>Look to thyself, thou art in jeopardy.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>No more than he that threats. To arms let’s hie!</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt.
	
			CONST.
		ARTH.
		SAL.
		K. JOHN.
		K. PHI.
		LEW.
		BLANCH.
		EL.
		PAND.
		AUST.
		Attendants
	
</div>

</section>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 2</h3>

<h4>The plains near Angiers.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Alarums, excursions. Enter Bastard with Austria’s head.
	
	
	
		BAST.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Now by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;</li>
  <li>Some aery devil hovers in the sky</li>
  <li>And pours down mischief. Austria’s head lie there,</li>
  <li>While Philip breathes.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter King John, Arthur, Hubert.
	
		K. JOHN.
		ARTH.
		HUB.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="5">Hubert, keep this boy. Philip, make up.</li>
  <li>My mother is assailed in our tent,</li>
  <li>And ta’en, I fear.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-offset="4">My lord, I rescued her;</li>
  <li>Her Highness is in safety, fear you not.</li>
  <li>But on, my liege, for very little pains</li>
  <li data-number="10">Will bring this labor to an happy end.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt.
	
		BAST.
		K. JOHN.
		ARTH.
		HUB.
	
</div>

</section>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 3</h3>

<h4>The plains near Angiers.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Alarums, excursions, retreat. Enter King John, Elinor, Arthur, Bastard, Hubert, Lords.
	
	
	
		K. JOHN.
		EL.
		ARTH.
		BAST.
		HUB.
		Lords
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li class="stage-direction">
	To Elinor.
	
		K. JOHN.
		EL.
	
</li>
  <li>So shall it be; your Grace shall stay behind</li>
  <li>So strongly guarded.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	To Arthur.
	
		K. JOHN.
		ARTH.
	
</li>
  <li data-offset="4">Cousin, look not sad,</li>
  <li>Thy grandame loves thee, and thy uncle will</li>
  <li>As dear be to thee as thy father was.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li data-number="5">O, this will make my mother die with grief!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li class="stage-direction">
	To the Bastard.
	
		K. JOHN.
		BAST.
	
</li>
  <li>Cousin, away for England! Haste before,</li>
  <li>And ere our coming see thou shake the bags</li>
  <li>Of hoarding abbots, imprisoned angels</li>
  <li>Set at liberty. The fat ribs of peace</li>
  <li data-number="10">Must by the hungry now be fed upon.</li>
  <li>Use our commission in his utmost force.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back,</li>
  <li>When gold and silver becks me to come on.</li>
  <li>I leave your Highness. Grandame, I will pray</li>
  <li data-number="15">(If ever I remember to be holy)</li>
  <li>For your fair safety; so I kiss your hand.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>Farewell, gentle cousin.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-offset="5">Coz, farewell.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exit Bastard.
	
		BAST.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>Come hither, little kinsman, hark, a word.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Takes Arthur aside.
	
		EL.
		ARTH.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert,</li>
  <li data-number="20">We owe thee much! Within this wall of flesh</li>
  <li>There is a soul counts thee her creditor,</li>
  <li>And with advantage means to pay thy love;</li>
  <li>And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath</li>
  <li>Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.</li>
  <li data-number="25">Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say,</li>
  <li>But I will fit it with some better time.</li>
  <li>By heaven, Hubert, I am almost asham’d</li>
  <li>To say what good respect I have of thee.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>I am much bounden to your Majesty.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="30">Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet,</li>
  <li>But thou shalt have; and creep time ne’er so slow,</li>
  <li>Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.</li>
  <li>I had a thing to say, but let it go.</li>
  <li>The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,</li>
  <li data-number="35">Attended with the pleasures of the world,</li>
  <li>Is all too wanton and too full of gawds</li>
  <li>To give me audience. If the midnight bell</li>
  <li>Did with his iron tongue and brazen mouth</li>
  <li>Sound on into the drowsy race of night;</li>
  <li data-number="40">If this same were a churchyard where we stand,</li>
  <li>And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;</li>
  <li>Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,</li>
  <li>Had bak’d thy blood and made it heavy, thick,</li>
  <li>Which else runs tickling up and down the veins,</li>
  <li data-number="45">Making that idiot, laughter, keep men’s eyes</li>
  <li>And strain their cheeks to idle merriment—</li>
  <li>A passion hateful to my purposes;</li>
  <li>Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,</li>
  <li>Hear me without thine ears, and make reply</li>
  <li data-number="50">Without a tongue, using conceit alone,</li>
  <li>Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words—</li>
  <li>Then, in despite of brooded watchful day,</li>
  <li>I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts.</li>
  <li>But, ah, I will not! Yet I love thee well,</li>
  <li data-number="55">And by my troth I think thou lov’st me well.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>So well, that what you bid me undertake,</li>
  <li>Though that my death were adjunct to my act,</li>
  <li>By heaven, I would do it.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-offset="5">Do not I know thou wouldst?</li>
  <li>Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye</li>
  <li data-number="60">On yon young boy. I’ll tell thee what, my friend,</li>
  <li>He is a very serpent in my way,</li>
  <li>And wheresoe’er this foot of mine doth tread,</li>
  <li>He lies before me. Dost thou understand me?</li>
  <li>Thou art his keeper.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-offset="4">And I’ll keep him so,</li>
  <li>That he shall not offend your Majesty.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-offset="8">Death.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>My lord?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-offset="2">A grave.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-offset="4">He shall not live.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-offset="8">Enough.</li>
  <li>I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee.</li>
  <li>Well, I’ll not say what I intend for thee.</li>
  <li>Remember. Madam, fare you well,</li>
  <li>I’ll send those powers o’er to your Majesty.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EL.">
  <li>My blessing go with thee!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-offset="5">For England, cousin, go.</li>
  <li>Hubert shall be your man, attend on you</li>
  <li>With all true duty. On toward Callice, ho!</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt.
	
			K. JOHN.
		EL.
		ARTH.
		HUB.
		Lords
	
</div>

</section>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 4</h3>

<h4>The plains near Angiers. King Philip’s tent.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter King Philip of France, Lewis the Dauphin, Pandulph, Attendants.
	
		K. PHI.
		LEW.
		PAND.
		Attendants
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>So by a roaring tempest on the flood,</li>
  <li>A whole armado of convicted sail</li>
  <li>Is scattered and disjoin’d from fellowship.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li>Courage and comfort! All shall yet go well.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li data-number="5">What can go well, when we have run so ill?</li>
  <li>Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost?</li>
  <li>Arthur ta’en prisoner? Divers dear friends slain?</li>
  <li>And bloody England into England gone,</li>
  <li>O’erbearing interruption, spite of France?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li data-number="10">What he hath won, that hath he fortified.</li>
  <li>So hot a speed with such advice dispos’d,</li>
  <li>Such temperate order in so fierce a cause,</li>
  <li>Doth want example. Who hath read or heard</li>
  <li>Of any kindred action like to this?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li data-number="15">Well could I bear that England had this praise,</li>
  <li>So we could find some pattern of our shame.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Enter Constance.
	
		CONST.
	
</li>
  <li>Look who comes here! A grave unto a soul,</li>
  <li>Holding th’ eternal spirit, against her will,</li>
  <li>In the vild prison of afflicted breath.</li>
  <li data-number="20">I prithee, lady, go away with me.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>Lo! Now! Now see the issue of your peace.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>Patience, good lady, comfort, gentle Constance!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>No, I defy all counsel, all redress,</li>
  <li>But that which ends all counsel, true redress:</li>
  <li data-number="25">Death, death. O amiable lovely death!</li>
  <li>Thou odoriferous stench! Sound rottenness!</li>
  <li>Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,</li>
  <li>Thou hate and terror to prosperity,</li>
  <li>And I will kiss thy detestable bones,</li>
  <li data-number="30">And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows,</li>
  <li>And ring these fingers with thy household worms,</li>
  <li>And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,</li>
  <li>And be a carrion monster like thyself.</li>
  <li>Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smil’st,</li>
  <li>And buss thee as thy wife. Misery’s love,</li>
  <li>O, come to me!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li data-offset="3">O fair affliction, peace!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>No, no, I will not, having breath to cry.</li>
  <li>O that my tongue were in the thunder’s mouth!</li>
  <li>Then with a passion would I shake the world,</li>
  <li data-number="40">And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy</li>
  <li>Which cannot hear a lady’s feeble voice,</li>
  <li>Which scorns a modern invocation.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li>Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>Thou art not holy to belie me so,</li>
  <li data-number="45">I am not mad. This hair I tear is mine,</li>
  <li>My name is Constance, I was Geffrey’s wife,</li>
  <li>Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost.</li>
  <li>I am not mad, I would to heaven I were!</li>
  <li>For then ’tis like I should forget myself.</li>
  <li data-number="50">O, if I could, what grief should I forget!</li>
  <li>Preach some philosophy to make me mad,</li>
  <li>And thou shalt be canoniz’d, Cardinal;</li>
  <li>For, being not mad, but sensible of grief,</li>
  <li>My reasonable part produces reason</li>
  <li data-number="55">How I may be deliver’d of these woes,</li>
  <li>And teaches me to kill or hang myself.</li>
  <li>If I were mad, I should forget my son,</li>
  <li>Or madly think a babe of clouts were he.</li>
  <li>I am not mad; too well, too well I feel</li>
  <li data-number="60">The different plague of each calamity.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>Bind up those tresses. O, what love I note</li>
  <li>In the fair multitude of those her hairs!</li>
  <li>Where but by chance a silver drop hath fall’n,</li>
  <li>Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends</li>
  <li data-number="65">Do glue themselves in sociable grief,</li>
  <li>Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,</li>
  <li>Sticking together in calamity.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>To England, if you will.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li data-offset="5">Bind up your hairs.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it?</li>
  <li data-number="70">I tore them from their bonds, and cried aloud,</li>
  <li>“O that these hands could so redeem my son</li>
  <li>As they have given these hairs their liberty!”</li>
  <li>But now I envy at their liberty,</li>
  <li>And will again commit them to their bonds,</li>
  <li data-number="75">Because my poor child is a prisoner.</li>
  <li>And, father Cardinal, I have heard you say</li>
  <li>That we shall see and know our friends in heaven.</li>
  <li>If that be true, I shall see my boy again;</li>
  <li>For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,</li>
  <li data-number="80">To him that did but yesterday suspire,</li>
  <li>There was not such a gracious creature born.</li>
  <li>But now will canker-sorrow eat my bud,</li>
  <li>And chase the native beauty from his cheek,</li>
  <li>And he will look as hollow as a ghost,</li>
  <li data-number="85">As dim and meagre as an ague’s fit,</li>
  <li>And so he’ll die; and rising so again,</li>
  <li>When I shall meet him in the court of heaven</li>
  <li>I shall not know him: therefore never, never</li>
  <li>Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li data-number="90">You hold too heinous a respect of grief.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>He talks to me that never had a son.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>You are as fond of grief as of your child.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="CONST.">
  <li>Grief fills the room up of my absent child,</li>
  <li>Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,</li>
  <li data-number="95">Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,</li>
  <li>Remembers me of all his gracious parts,</li>
  <li>Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;</li>
  <li>Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?</li>
  <li>Fare you well! Had you such a loss as I,</li>
  <li data-number="100">I could give better comfort than you do.</li>
  <li>I will not keep this form upon my head</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Tearing her hair.
	
		CONST.
	
</li>
  <li>When there is such disorder in my wit.</li>
  <li>O Lord, my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!</li>
  <li>My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!</li>
  <li data-number="105">My widow-comfort, and my sorrows’ cure!</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exit.
	
		CONST.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. PHI.">
  <li>I fear some outrage, and I’ll follow her.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exit.
	
		K. PHI.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>There’s nothing in this world can make me joy:</li>
  <li>Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale</li>
  <li>Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man;</li>
  <li data-number="110">And bitter shame hath spoil’d the sweet word’s taste,</li>
  <li>That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li>Before the curing of a strong disease,</li>
  <li>Even in the instant of repair and health,</li>
  <li>The fit is strongest; evils that take leave,</li>
  <li data-number="115">On their departure most of all show evil.</li>
  <li>What have you lost by losing of this day?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>All days of glory, joy, and happiness.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li>If you had won it, certainly you had.</li>
  <li>No, no; when Fortune means to men most good,</li>
  <li data-number="120">She looks upon them with a threat’ning eye.</li>
  <li>’Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost</li>
  <li>In this which he accounts so clearly won.</li>
  <li>Are not you griev’d that Arthur is his prisoner?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>As heartily as he is glad he hath him.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li data-number="125">Your mind is all as youthful as your blood.</li>
  <li>Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit;</li>
  <li>For even the breath of what I mean to speak</li>
  <li>Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub,</li>
  <li>Out of the path which shall directly lead</li>
  <li data-number="130">Thy foot to England’s throne. And therefore mark:</li>
  <li>John hath seiz’d Arthur, and it cannot be</li>
  <li>That whiles warm life plays in that infant’s veins,</li>
  <li>The misplac’d John should entertain an hour,</li>
  <li>One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest.</li>
  <li data-number="135">A sceptre snatch’d with an unruly hand</li>
  <li>Must be as boisterously maintain’d as gain’d;</li>
  <li>And he that stands upon a slipp’ry place</li>
  <li>Makes nice of no vild hold to stay him up.</li>
  <li>That John may stand, then Arthur needs must fall:</li>
  <li data-number="140">So be it, for it cannot be but so.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>But what shall I gain by young Arthur’s fall?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li>You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife,</li>
  <li>May then make all the claim that Arthur did.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li data-number="145">How green you are and fresh in this old world!</li>
  <li>John lays you plots; the times conspire with you,</li>
  <li>For he that steeps his safety in true blood</li>
  <li>Shall find but bloody safety, and untrue.</li>
  <li>This act so evilly borne shall cool the hearts</li>
  <li data-number="150">Of all his people, and freeze up their zeal,</li>
  <li>That none so small advantage shall step forth</li>
  <li>To check his reign, but they will cherish it;</li>
  <li>No natural exhalation in the sky,</li>
  <li>No scope of nature, no distemper’d day,</li>
  <li data-number="155">No common wind, no customed event,</li>
  <li>But they will pluck away his natural cause</li>
  <li>And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs,</li>
  <li>Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven,</li>
  <li>Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li data-number="160">May be he will not touch young Arthur’s life,</li>
  <li>But hold himself safe in his prisonment.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li>O sir, when he shall hear of your approach,</li>
  <li>If that young Arthur be not gone already,</li>
  <li>Even at that news he dies; and then the hearts</li>
  <li data-number="165">Of all his people shall revolt from him,</li>
  <li>And kiss the lips of unacquainted change,</li>
  <li>And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath</li>
  <li>Out of the bloody fingers’ ends of John.</li>
  <li>Methinks I see this hurly all on foot;</li>
  <li data-number="170">And O, what better matter breeds for you</li>
  <li>Than I have nam’d! The bastard Faulconbridge</li>
  <li>Is now in England ransacking the Church,</li>
  <li>Offending charity. If but a dozen French</li>
  <li>Were there in arms, they would be as a call</li>
  <li data-number="175">To train ten thousand English to their side,</li>
  <li>Or as a little snow, tumbled about,</li>
  <li>Anon becomes a mountain. O noble Dauphin,</li>
  <li>Go with me to the King. ’Tis wonderful</li>
  <li>What may be wrought out of their discontent,</li>
  <li data-number="180">Now that their souls are topful of offense.</li>
  <li>For England go; I will whet on the King.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>Strong reasons makes strange actions. Let us go;</li>
  <li>If you say ay, the King will not say no.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt.
	
		LEW.
		PAND.
		Attendants
	
</div>

</section>

</section>

<section class="act">

<h2>Act 4</h2>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 1</h3>

<h4>Northampton. A room in the castle.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Hubert and Executioners.
	
		HUB.
		EXEC.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Heat me these irons hot, and look thou stand</li>
  <li>Within the arras. When I strike my foot</li>
  <li>Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth</li>
  <li>And bind the boy which you shall find with me</li>
  <li data-number="5">Fast to the chair. Be heedful. Hence, and watch.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EXEC.">
  <li>I hope your warrant will bear out the deed.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Uncleanly scruples! Fear not you. Look to’t.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt Executioners.
	
		EXEC.
	
</li>
  <li>Young lad, come forth; I have to say with you.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Arthur.
	
		ARTH.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li>Good morrow, Hubert.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-offset="5">Good morrow, little prince.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li data-number="10">As little prince, having so great a title</li>
  <li>To be more prince, as may be. You are sad.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Indeed I have been merrier.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li data-offset="6">Mercy on me!</li>
  <li>Methinks nobody should be sad but I.</li>
  <li>Yet I remember, when I was in France,</li>
  <li data-number="15">Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,</li>
  <li>Only for wantonness. By my christendom,</li>
  <li>So I were out of prison and kept sheep,</li>
  <li>I should be as merry as the day is long;</li>
  <li>And so I would be here, but that I doubt</li>
  <li data-number="20">My uncle practices more harm to me.</li>
  <li>He is afraid of me and I of him.</li>
  <li>Is it my fault that I was Geffrey’s son?</li>
  <li>No indeed is’t not; and I would to heaven</li>
  <li>I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Aside.
	
		HUB.
	
</li>
  <li data-number="25">If I talk to him, with his innocent prate</li>
  <li>He will awake my mercy, which lies dead;</li>
  <li>Therefore I will be sudden, and dispatch.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li>Are you sick, Hubert? You look pale today.</li>
  <li>In sooth, I would you were a little sick,</li>
  <li data-number="30">That I might sit all night and watch with you.</li>
  <li>I warrant I love you more than you do me.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Aside.
	
		HUB.
	
</li>
  <li>His words do take possession of my bosom.—</li>
  <li>Read here, young Arthur.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Showing a paper.
	
		HUB.
		ARTH.
	
</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Aside.
	
		HUB.
	
</li>
  <li data-offset="5">How now, foolish rheum?</li>
  <li>Turning dispiteous torture out of door?</li>
  <li data-number="35">I must be brief, lest resolution drop</li>
  <li>Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears.—</li>
  <li>Can you not read it? Is it not fair writ?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li>Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect.</li>
  <li>Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Young boy, I must.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li data-offset="4">And will you?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-number="40" data-offset="7">And I will.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li>Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,</li>
  <li>I knit my handkercher about your brows</li>
  <li>(The best I had, a princess wrought it me)</li>
  <li>And I did never ask it you again;</li>
  <li data-number="45">And with my hand at midnight held your head;</li>
  <li>And like the watchful minutes to the hour,</li>
  <li>Still and anon cheer’d up the heavy time,</li>
  <li>Saying, “What lack you?” and “Where lies your grief?”</li>
  <li>Or “What good love may I perform for you?”</li>
  <li data-number="50">Many a poor man’s son would have lien still,</li>
  <li>And ne’er have spoke a loving word to you;</li>
  <li>But you at your sick service had a prince.</li>
  <li>Nay, you may think my love was crafty love,</li>
  <li>And call it cunning. Do, and if you will;</li>
  <li data-number="55">If heaven be pleas’d that you must use me ill,</li>
  <li>Why then you must. Will you put out mine eyes,</li>
  <li>These eyes that never did nor never shall</li>
  <li>So much as frown on you?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-offset="5">I have sworn to do it;</li>
  <li>And with hot irons must I burn them out.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li data-number="60">Ah, none but in this iron age would do it!</li>
  <li>The iron of itself, though heat red-hot,</li>
  <li>Approaching near these eyes, would drink my tears,</li>
  <li>And quench his fiery indignation</li>
  <li>Even in the matter of mine innocence;</li>
  <li data-number="65">Nay, after that, consume away in rust,</li>
  <li>But for containing fire to harm mine eye.</li>
  <li>Are you more stubborn-hard than hammer’d iron?</li>
  <li>And if an angel should have come to me</li>
  <li>And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes,</li>
  <li>I would not have believ’d him—no tongue but Hubert’s.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Come forth.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Stamps.
	
		HUB.
	
</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Enter Executioners with a cord, irons, etc.
	
		EXEC.
	
</li>
  <li data-offset="3">Do as I bid you do.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li>O, save me, Hubert, save me! My eyes are out</li>
  <li>Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li data-number="75">Alas, what need you be so boist’rous-rough?</li>
  <li>I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still.</li>
  <li>For heaven sake, Hubert, let me not be bound!</li>
  <li>Nay, hear me, Hubert, drive these men away,</li>
  <li>And I will sit as quiet as a lamb;</li>
  <li data-number="80">I will not stir, nor winch, nor speak a word,</li>
  <li>Nor look upon the iron angerly.</li>
  <li>Thrust but these men away, and I’ll forgive you,</li>
  <li>What ever torment you do put me to.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Go stand within; let me alone with him.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="EXEC.">
  <li data-number="85">I am best pleas’d to be from such a deed.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt Executioners.
	
		EXEC.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li>Alas, I then have chid away my friend!</li>
  <li>He hath a stern look, but a gentle heart.</li>
  <li>Let him come back, that his compassion may</li>
  <li>Give life to yours.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-offset="4">Come, boy, prepare yourself.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li>Is there no remedy?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-number="90" data-offset="4">None, but to lose your eyes.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li>O heaven! That there were but a mote in yours,</li>
  <li>A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair,</li>
  <li>Any annoyance in that precious sense!</li>
  <li>Then feeling what small things are boisterous there,</li>
  <li data-number="95">Your vild intent must needs seem horrible.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Is this your promise? Go to, hold your tongue.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li>Hubert, the utterance of a brace of tongues</li>
  <li>Must needs want pleading for a pair of eyes.</li>
  <li>Let me not hold my tongue, let me not, Hubert;</li>
  <li data-number="100">Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue,</li>
  <li>So I may keep mine eyes. O, spare mine eyes,</li>
  <li>Though to no use but still to look on you!</li>
  <li>Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold,</li>
  <li>And would not harm me.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-offset="5">I can heat it, boy.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li data-number="105">No, in good sooth; the fire is dead with grief,</li>
  <li>Being create for comfort, to be us’d</li>
  <li>In undeserv’d extremes. See else yourself,</li>
  <li>There is no malice in this burning coal;</li>
  <li>The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out,</li>
  <li data-number="110">And strew’d repentant ashes on his head.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>But with my breath I can revive it, boy.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li>And if you do, you will but make it blush</li>
  <li>And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert.</li>
  <li>Nay, it perchance will sparkle in your eyes;</li>
  <li data-number="115">And, like a dog that is compell’d to fight,</li>
  <li>Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on.</li>
  <li>All things that you should use to do me wrong</li>
  <li>Deny their office; only you do lack</li>
  <li>That mercy which fierce fire and iron extends,</li>
  <li data-number="120">Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Well, see to live; I will not touch thine eye</li>
  <li>For all the treasure that thine uncle owes.</li>
  <li>Yet am I sworn, and I did purpose, boy,</li>
  <li>With this same very iron to burn them out.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li>O now you look like Hubert! All this while</li>
  <li>You were disguis’d.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-offset="4">Peace; no more. <foreign xml:lang="fr">Adieu</foreign>.</li>
  <li>Your uncle must not know but you are dead.</li>
  <li>I’ll fill these dogged spies with false reports;</li>
  <li>And, pretty child, sleep doubtless and secure</li>
  <li>That Hubert, for the wealth of all the world,</li>
  <li>Will not offend thee.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li data-offset="4">O heaven! I thank you, Hubert.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Silence, no more. Go closely in with me;</li>
  <li>Much danger do I undergo for thee.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt.
	
		HUB.
		ARTH.
	
</div>

</section>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 2</h3>

<h4>A room in King John’s castle.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter King John, Pembroke, Salisbury, and other Lords.
	
		K. JOHN.
		PEM.
		SAL.
		Lords
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Here once again we sit; once again crown’d,</li>
  <li>And look’d upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li>This “once again” (but that your Highness pleas’d)</li>
  <li>Was once superfluous. You were crown’d before,</li>
  <li data-number="5">And that high royalty was ne’er pluck’d off;</li>
  <li>The faiths of men ne’er stained with revolt;</li>
  <li>Fresh expectation troubled not the land</li>
  <li>With any long’d-for change or better state.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp,</li>
  <li data-number="10">To guard a title that was rich before,</li>
  <li>To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,</li>
  <li>To throw a perfume on the violet,</li>
  <li>To smooth the ice, or add another hue</li>
  <li>Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light</li>
  <li data-number="15">To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,</li>
  <li>Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li>But that your royal pleasure must be done,</li>
  <li>This act is as an ancient tale new told,</li>
  <li>And, in the last repeating, troublesome,</li>
  <li data-number="20">Being urged at a time unseasonable.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>In this the antique and well-noted face</li>
  <li>Of plain old form is much disfigured,</li>
  <li>And like a shifted wind unto a sail,</li>
  <li>It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about,</li>
  <li data-number="25">Startles and frights consideration,</li>
  <li>Makes sound opinion sick, and truth suspected,</li>
  <li>For putting on so new a fashion’d robe.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li>When workmen strive to do better than well,</li>
  <li>They do confound their skill in covetousness,</li>
  <li data-number="30">And oftentimes excusing of a fault</li>
  <li>Doth make the fault the worse by th’ excuse:</li>
  <li>As patches set upon a little breach</li>
  <li>Discredit more in hiding of the fault</li>
  <li>Than did the fault before it was so patch’d.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li data-number="35">To this effect, before you were new crown’d,</li>
  <li>We breath’d our counsel; but it pleas’d your Highness</li>
  <li>To overbear it, and we are all well pleas’d,</li>
  <li>Since all and every part of what we would</li>
  <li>Doth make a stand at what your Highness will.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="40">Some reasons of this double coronation</li>
  <li>I have possess’d you with, and think them strong;</li>
  <li>And more, more strong than lesser is my fear,</li>
  <li>I shall indue you with. Mean time but ask</li>
  <li>What you would have reform’d that is not well,</li>
  <li data-number="45">And well shall you perceive how willingly</li>
  <li>I will both hear and grant you your requests.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li>Then I, as one that am the tongue of these</li>
  <li>To sound the purposes of all their hearts,</li>
  <li>Both for myself and them—but, chief of all,</li>
  <li data-number="50">Your safety, for the which myself and them</li>
  <li>Bend their best studies—heartily request</li>
  <li>Th’ enfranchisement of Arthur, whose restraint</li>
  <li>Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent</li>
  <li>To break into this dangerous argument:</li>
  <li data-number="55">If what in rest you have in right you hold,</li>
  <li>Why then your fears, which (as they say) attend</li>
  <li>The steps of wrong, should move you to mew up</li>
  <li>Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days</li>
  <li>With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth</li>
  <li data-number="60">The rich advantage of good exercise.</li>
  <li>That the time’s enemies may not have this</li>
  <li>To grace occasions, let it be our suit</li>
  <li>That you have bid us ask his liberty,</li>
  <li>Which for our goods we do no further ask</li>
  <li data-number="65">Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,</li>
  <li>Counts it your weal he have his liberty.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Hubert.
	
		HUB.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Let it be so; I do commit his youth</li>
  <li>To your direction. Hubert, what news with you?</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Taking him aside.
	
		K. JOHN.
		HUB.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li>This is the man should do the bloody deed;</li>
  <li data-number="70">He show’d his warrant to a friend of mine.</li>
  <li>The image of a wicked heinous fault</li>
  <li>Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his</li>
  <li>Doth show the mood of a much troubled breast,</li>
  <li>And I do fearfully believe ’tis done,</li>
  <li data-number="75">What we so fear’d he had a charge to do.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>The color of the King doth come and go</li>
  <li>Between his purpose and his conscience,</li>
  <li>Like heralds ’twixt two dreadful battles set:</li>
  <li>His passion is so ripe, it needs must break.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li data-number="80">And when it breaks, I fear will issue thence</li>
  <li>The foul corruption of a sweet child’s death.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>We cannot hold mortality’s strong hand.</li>
  <li>Good lords, although my will to give is living,</li>
  <li>The suit which you demand is gone and dead.</li>
  <li data-number="85">He tells us Arthur is deceas’d tonight.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>Indeed we fear’d his sickness was past cure.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li>Indeed we heard how near his death he was</li>
  <li>Before the child himself felt he was sick.</li>
  <li>This must be answer’d either here or hence.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="90">Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?</li>
  <li>Think you I bear the shears of destiny?</li>
  <li>Have I commandment on the pulse of life?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>It is apparent foul play, and ’tis shame</li>
  <li>That greatness should so grossly offer it.</li>
  <li data-number="95">So thrive it in your game! And so farewell.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li>Stay yet, Lord Salisbury, I’ll go with thee,</li>
  <li>And find th’ inheritance of this poor child,</li>
  <li>His little kingdom of a forced grave.</li>
  <li>That blood which ow’d the breadth of all this isle,</li>
  <li data-number="100">Three foot of it doth hold; bad world the while!</li>
  <li>This must not be thus borne. This will break out</li>
  <li>To all our sorrows, and ere long I doubt.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt Lords.
	
		Lords
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>They burn in indignation. I repent.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Enter Messenger.
	
		MESS.
	
</li>
  <li>There is no sure foundation set on blood;</li>
  <li data-number="105">No certain life achiev’d by others’ death.</li>
  <li>A fearful eye thou hast. Where is that blood</li>
  <li>That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?</li>
  <li>So foul a sky clears not without a storm,</li>
  <li>Pour down thy weather. How goes all in France?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="MESS.">
  <li data-number="110">From France to England. Never such a pow’r</li>
  <li>For any foreign preparation</li>
  <li>Was levied in the body of a land.</li>
  <li>The copy of your speed is learn’d by them;</li>
  <li>For when you should be told they do prepare,</li>
  <li data-number="115">The tidings comes that they are all arriv’d.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?</li>
  <li>Where hath it slept? Where is my mother’s care,</li>
  <li>That such an army could be drawn in France,</li>
  <li>And she not hear of it?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="MESS.">
  <li data-offset="5">My liege, her ear</li>
  <li data-number="120">Is stopp’d with dust: the first of April died</li>
  <li>Your noble mother; and as I hear, my lord,</li>
  <li>The Lady Constance in a frenzy died</li>
  <li>Three days before; but this from rumor’s tongue</li>
  <li>I idly heard—if true or false I know not.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="125">Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion!</li>
  <li>O, make a league with me, till I have pleas’d</li>
  <li>My discontented peers! What? Mother dead?</li>
  <li>How wildly then walks my estate in France!</li>
  <li>Under whose conduct came those pow’rs of France</li>
  <li>That thou for truth giv’st out are landed here?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="MESS.">
  <li>Under the Dauphin.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Bastard and Peter of Pomfret.
	
		BAST.
		PETER.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-offset="5">Thou hast made me giddy</li>
  <li>With these ill tidings.—Now! What says the world</li>
  <li>To your proceedings? Do not seek to stuff</li>
  <li>My head with more ill news, for it is full.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="135">But if you be afeard to hear the worst,</li>
  <li>Then let the worst unheard fall on your head.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Bear with me, cousin, for I was amaz’d</li>
  <li>Under the tide; but now I breathe again</li>
  <li>Aloft the flood, and can give audience</li>
  <li data-number="140">To any tongue, speak it of what it will.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>How I have sped among the clergymen</li>
  <li>The sums I have collected shall express.</li>
  <li>But as I travel’d hither through the land,</li>
  <li>I find the people strangely fantasied,</li>
  <li data-number="145">Possess’d with rumors, full of idle dreams,</li>
  <li>Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear.</li>
  <li>And here’s a prophet that I brought with me</li>
  <li>From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found</li>
  <li>With many hundreds treading on his heels;</li>
  <li data-number="150">To whom he sung, in rude harsh-sounding rhymes,</li>
  <li>That, ere the next Ascension-day at noon,</li>
  <li>Your Highness should deliver up your crown.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PETER.">
  <li>Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="155">Hubert, away with him; imprison him;</li>
  <li>And on that day at noon, whereon he says</li>
  <li>I shall yield up my crown, let him be hang’d.</li>
  <li>Deliver him to safety, and return,</li>
  <li>For I must use thee.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Exit Hubert with Peter.
	
		HUB.
		PETER.
	
</li>
  <li data-offset="5">O my gentle cousin,</li>
  <li data-number="160">Hear’st thou the news abroad, who are arriv’d?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>The French, my lord; men’s mouths are full of it.</li>
  <li>Besides, I met Lord Bigot and Lord Salisbury,</li>
  <li>With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,</li>
  <li>And others more, going to seek the grave</li>
  <li>Of Arthur, whom they say is kill’d tonight</li>
  <li>On your suggestion.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-offset="4">Gentle kinsman, go</li>
  <li>And thrust thyself into their companies;</li>
  <li>I have a way to win their loves again.</li>
  <li>Bring them before me.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-offset="5">I will seek them out.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="170">Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.</li>
  <li>O, let me have no subject enemies</li>
  <li>When adverse foreigners affright my towns</li>
  <li>With dreadful pomp of stout invasion!</li>
  <li>Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels,</li>
  <li data-number="175">And fly, like thought, from them to me again.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exit.
	
		BAST.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman.</li>
  <li>Go after him; for he perhaps shall need</li>
  <li>Some messenger betwixt me and the peers,</li>
  <li>And be thou he.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="MESS.">
  <li data-number="180" data-offset="3">With all my heart, my liege.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exit.
	
		MESS.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>My mother dead!</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Hubert.
	
		HUB.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>My lord, they say five moons were seen tonight;</li>
  <li>Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about</li>
  <li>The other four in wondrous motion.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Five moons?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-number="185" data-offset="3">Old men and beldames in the streets</li>
  <li>Do prophesy upon it dangerously.</li>
  <li>Young Arthur’s death is common in their mouths,</li>
  <li>And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,</li>
  <li>And whisper one another in the ear;</li>
  <li data-number="190">And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer’s wrist,</li>
  <li>Whilst he that hears makes fearful action</li>
  <li>With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.</li>
  <li>I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,</li>
  <li>The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,</li>
  <li data-number="195">With open mouth swallowing a tailor’s news,</li>
  <li>Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,</li>
  <li>Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste</li>
  <li>Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,</li>
  <li>Told of a many thousand warlike French</li>
  <li data-number="200">That were embattailed and rank’d in Kent.</li>
  <li>Another lean unwash’d artificer</li>
  <li>Cuts off his tale and talks of Arthur’s death.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Why seek’st thou to possess me with these fears?</li>
  <li>Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur’s death?</li>
  <li data-number="205">Thy hand hath murd’red him. I had a mighty cause</li>
  <li>To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>No had, my lord? Why, did you not provoke me?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>It is the curse of kings to be attended</li>
  <li>By slaves that take their humors for a warrant</li>
  <li data-number="210">To break within the bloody house of life,</li>
  <li>And on the winking of authority</li>
  <li>To understand a law; to know the meaning</li>
  <li>Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns</li>
  <li>More upon humor than advis’d respect.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-number="215">Here is your hand and seal for what I did.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>O, when the last accompt ’twixt heaven and earth</li>
  <li>Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal</li>
  <li>Witness against us to damnation!</li>
  <li>How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds</li>
  <li data-number="220">Make deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,</li>
  <li>A fellow by the hand of nature mark’d,</li>
  <li>Quoted, and sign’d to do a deed of shame,</li>
  <li>This murder had not come into my mind;</li>
  <li>But taking note of thy abhorr’d aspect,</li>
  <li data-number="225">Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,</li>
  <li>Apt, liable to be employ’d in danger,</li>
  <li>I faintly broke with thee of Arthur’s death;</li>
  <li>And thou, to be endeared to a king,</li>
  <li>Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-number="230">My lord—</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Hadst thou but shook thy head or made a pause</li>
  <li>When I spake darkly what I purposed,</li>
  <li>Or turn’d an eye of doubt upon my face,</li>
  <li>As bid me tell my tale in express words,</li>
  <li data-number="235">Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,</li>
  <li>And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me.</li>
  <li>But thou didst understand me by my signs,</li>
  <li>And didst in signs again parley with sin,</li>
  <li>Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,</li>
  <li data-number="240">And consequently thy rude hand to act</li>
  <li>The deed, which both our tongues held vild to name.</li>
  <li>Out of my sight, and never see me more!</li>
  <li>My nobles leave me, and my state is braved,</li>
  <li>Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign pow’rs;</li>
  <li data-number="245">Nay, in the body of this fleshly land,</li>
  <li>This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,</li>
  <li>Hostility and civil tumult reigns</li>
  <li>Between my conscience and my cousin’s death.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Arm you against your other enemies,</li>
  <li data-number="250">I’ll make a peace between your soul and you.</li>
  <li>Young Arthur is alive. This hand of mine</li>
  <li>Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,</li>
  <li>Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.</li>
  <li>Within this bosom never ent’red yet</li>
  <li data-number="255">The dreadful motion of a murderous thought,</li>
  <li>And you have slander’d nature in my form,</li>
  <li>Which howsoever rude exteriorly,</li>
  <li>Is yet the cover of a fairer mind</li>
  <li>Than to be butcher of an innocent child.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="260">Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to the peers,</li>
  <li>Throw this report on their incensed rage,</li>
  <li>And make them tame to their obedience!</li>
  <li>Forgive the comment that my passion made</li>
  <li>Upon thy feature, for my rage was blind,</li>
  <li data-number="265">And foul imaginary eyes of blood</li>
  <li>Presented thee more hideous than thou art.</li>
  <li>O, answer not! But to my closet bring</li>
  <li>The angry lords with all expedient haste.</li>
  <li>I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt.
	
		K. JOHN.
		PEM.
		SAL.
		HUB.
	
</div>

</section>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 3</h3>

<h4>Before King John’s castle.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Arthur on the walls.
	
		ARTH.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="ARTH.">
  <li>The wall is high, and yet will I leap down.</li>
  <li>Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not!</li>
  <li>There’s few or none do know me; if they did,</li>
  <li>This ship-boy’s semblance hath disguis’d me quite.</li>
  <li data-number="5">I am afraid, and yet I’ll venture it.</li>
  <li>If I get down, and do not break my limbs,</li>
  <li>I’ll find a thousand shifts to get away.</li>
  <li>As good to die and go, as die and stay.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Leaps down.
	
		ARTH.
	
</li>
  <li>O me, my uncle’s spirit is in these stones.</li>
  <li data-number="10">Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Dies.
	
		ARTH.
	
</div>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Pembroke, Salisbury, and Bigot.
	
		PEM.
		SAL.
		BIG.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmundsbury.</li>
  <li>It is our safety, and we must embrace</li>
  <li>This gentle offer of the perilous time.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li>Who brought that letter from the Cardinal?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li data-number="15">The Count Melune, a noble lord of France,</li>
  <li>Whose private with me of the Dauphin’s love</li>
  <li>Is much more general than these lines import.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BIG.">
  <li>Tomorrow morning let us meet him then.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>Or rather then set forward, for ’twill be</li>
  <li data-number="20">Two long days’ journey, lords, or ere we meet.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Bastard.
	
		BAST.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Once more today well met, distemper’d lords!</li>
  <li>The King by me requests your presence straight.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>The King hath dispossess’d himself of us.</li>
  <li>We will not line his thin bestained cloak</li>
  <li data-number="25">With our pure honors, nor attend the foot</li>
  <li>That leaves the print of blood where e’er it walks.</li>
  <li>Return, and tell him so. We know the worst.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>What e’er you think, good words I think were best.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="30">But there is little reason in your grief;</li>
  <li>Therefore ’twere reason you had manners now.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li>Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>’Tis true—to hurt his master, no man else.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>This is the prison.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Seeing Arthur.
	
		SAL.
		ARTH.
	
</li>
  <li data-offset="4">What is he lies here?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li data-number="35">O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!</li>
  <li>The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>Murder, as hating what himself hath done,</li>
  <li>Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BIG.">
  <li>Or when he doom’d this beauty to a grave,</li>
  <li data-number="40">Found it too precious-princely for a grave.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>Sir Richard, what think you? Have you beheld,</li>
  <li>Or have you read, or heard, or could you think?</li>
  <li>Or do you almost think, although you see,</li>
  <li>That you do see? Could thought, without this object,</li>
  <li data-number="45">Form such another? This is the very top,</li>
  <li>The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest,</li>
  <li>Of murder’s arms. This is the bloodiest shame,</li>
  <li>The wildest savagery, the vildest stroke,</li>
  <li>That ever wall-ey’d wrath or staring rage</li>
  <li data-number="50">Presented to the tears of soft remorse.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li>All murders past do stand excus’d in this;</li>
  <li>And this, so sole and so unmatchable,</li>
  <li>Shall give a holiness, a purity,</li>
  <li>To the yet unbegotten sin of times;</li>
  <li data-number="55">And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,</li>
  <li>Exampled by this heinous spectacle.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>It is a damned and a bloody work,</li>
  <li>The graceless action of a heavy hand—</li>
  <li>If that it be the work of any hand.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li data-number="60">If that it be the work of any hand?</li>
  <li>We had a kind of light what would ensue.</li>
  <li>It is the shameful work of Hubert’s hand,</li>
  <li>The practice and the purpose of the King;</li>
  <li>From whose obedience I forbid my soul,</li>
  <li data-number="65">Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,</li>
  <li>And breathing to his breathless excellence</li>
  <li>The incense of a vow, a holy vow,</li>
  <li>Never to taste the pleasures of the world,</li>
  <li>Never to be infected with delight,</li>
  <li data-number="70">Nor conversant with ease and idleness,</li>
  <li>Till I have set a glory to this hand,</li>
  <li>By giving it the worship of revenge.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BOTH. PEM. AND BIG.">
  <li>Our souls religiously confirm thy words.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Hubert.
	
		HUB.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you.</li>
  <li data-number="75">Arthur doth live, the King hath sent for you.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>O, he is bold, and blushes not at death.</li>
  <li>Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>I am no villain.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li data-offset="3">Must I rob the law?</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Drawing his sword.
	
		SAL.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Your sword is bright, sir, put it up again.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li data-number="80">Not till I sheathe it in a murderer’s skin.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Stand back, Lord Salisbury, stand back, I say;</li>
  <li>By heaven, I think my sword’s as sharp as yours.</li>
  <li>I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,</li>
  <li>Nor tempt the danger of my true defense,</li>
  <li data-number="85">Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget</li>
  <li>Your worth, your greatness, and nobility.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BIG.">
  <li>Out, dunghill! Dar’st thou brave a nobleman?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Not for my life; but yet I dare defend</li>
  <li>My innocent life against an emperor.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>Thou art a murderer.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-number="90" data-offset="4">Do not prove me so;</li>
  <li>Yet I am none. Whose tongue soe’er speaks false,</li>
  <li>Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li>Cut him to pieces.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-offset="4">Keep the peace, I say.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="95">Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury.</li>
  <li>If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,</li>
  <li>Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame,</li>
  <li>I’ll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime,</li>
  <li>Or I’ll so maul you and your toasting-iron</li>
  <li data-number="100">That you shall think the devil is come from hell.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BIG.">
  <li>What wilt thou do, renowned Faulconbridge?</li>
  <li>Second a villain and a murderer?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Lord Bigot, I am none.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BIG.">
  <li data-offset="5">Who kill’d this prince?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>’Tis not an hour since I left him well.</li>
  <li data-number="105">I honor’d him, I lov’d him, and will weep</li>
  <li>My date of life out for his sweet live’s loss.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,</li>
  <li>For villainy is not without such rheum,</li>
  <li>And he, long traded in it, makes it seem</li>
  <li data-number="110">Like rivers of remorse and innocency.</li>
  <li>Away with me, all you whose souls abhor</li>
  <li>Th’ uncleanly savors of a slaughter-house,</li>
  <li>For I am stifled with this smell of sin.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BIG.">
  <li>Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li data-number="115">There, tell the King, he may inquire us out.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt Lords.
	
		PEM.
		SAL.
		BIG.	
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Here’s a good world! Knew you of this fair work?</li>
  <li>Beyond the infinite and boundless reach</li>
  <li>Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,</li>
  <li>Art thou damn’d, Hubert.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-offset="5">Do but hear me, sir.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="120">Ha? I’ll tell thee what;</li>
  <li>Thou’rt damn’d as black—nay, nothing is so black—</li>
  <li>Thou art more deep damn’d than Prince Lucifer.</li>
  <li>There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell</li>
  <li>As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Upon my soul—</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="125" data-offset="3">If thou didst but consent</li>
  <li>To this most cruel act, do but despair,</li>
  <li>And if thou want’st a cord, the smallest thread</li>
  <li>That ever spider twisted from her womb</li>
  <li>Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a beam</li>
  <li data-number="130">To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown thyself,</li>
  <li>Put but a little water in a spoon,</li>
  <li>And it shall be as all the ocean,</li>
  <li>Enough to stifle such a villain up.</li>
  <li>I do suspect thee very grievously.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-number="135">If I in act, consent, or sin of thought</li>
  <li>Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath</li>
  <li>Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,</li>
  <li>Let hell want pains enough to torture me.</li>
  <li>I left him well.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-offset="3">Go, bear him in thine arms.</li>
  <li data-number="140">I am amaz’d, methinks, and lose my way</li>
  <li>Among the thorns and dangers of this world.</li>
  <li>How easy dost thou take all England up</li>
  <li>From forth this morsel of dead royalty!</li>
  <li>The life, the right, and truth of all this realm</li>
  <li data-number="145">Is fled to heaven; and England now is left</li>
  <li>To tug and scamble, and to part by th’ teeth</li>
  <li>The unowed interest of proud swelling state.</li>
  <li>Now for the bare-pick’d bone of majesty</li>
  <li>Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest,</li>
  <li data-number="150">And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace;</li>
  <li>Now powers from home and discontents at home</li>
  <li>Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits,</li>
  <li>As doth a raven on a sick-fall’n beast,</li>
  <li>The imminent decay of wrested pomp.</li>
  <li data-number="155">Now happy he whose cloak and center can</li>
  <li>Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child,</li>
  <li>And follow me with speed. I’ll to the King.</li>
  <li>A thousand businesses are brief in hand,</li>
  <li>And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt.
	
		BAST.
		HUB.
	
</div>

</section>

</section>

<section class="act">

<h2>Act 5</h2>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 1</h3>

<h4>King John’s Palace.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter King John and Pandulph, Attendants.
	
		K. JOHN.
		PAND.
		Attendants
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Thus have I yielded up into your hand</li>
  <li>The circle of my glory.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Giving the crown.
	
		K. JOHN.
		PAND.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li data-offset="5">Take again</li>
  <li>From this my hand, as holding of the Pope,</li>
  <li>Your sovereign greatness and authority.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="5">Now keep your holy word, go meet the French,</li>
  <li>And from his Holiness use all your power</li>
  <li>To stop their marches ’fore we are inflam’d.</li>
  <li>Our discontented counties do revolt;</li>
  <li>Our people quarrel with obedience,</li>
  <li data-number="10">Swearing allegiance and the love of soul</li>
  <li>To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.</li>
  <li>This inundation of mistemp’red humor</li>
  <li>Rests by you only to be qualified.</li>
  <li>Then pause not; for the present time’s so sick,</li>
  <li data-number="15">That present med’cine must be minist’red,</li>
  <li>Or overthrow incurable ensues.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li>It was my breath that blew this tempest up,</li>
  <li>Upon your stubborn usage of the Pope;</li>
  <li>But since you are a gentle convertite,</li>
  <li data-number="20">My tongue shall hush again this storm of war,</li>
  <li>And make fair weather in your blust’ring land.</li>
  <li>On this Ascension-day, remember well,</li>
  <li>Upon your oath of service to the Pope,</li>
  <li>Go I to make the French lay down their arms.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exit.
	
		PAND.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="25">Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet</li>
  <li>Say that before Ascension-day at noon</li>
  <li>My crown I should give off? Even so I have.</li>
  <li>I did suppose it should be on constraint,</li>
  <li>But (heav’n be thank’d!) it is but voluntary.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Bastard.
	
		BAST.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="30">All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out</li>
  <li>But Dover castle. London hath receiv’d,</li>
  <li>Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers.</li>
  <li>Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone</li>
  <li>To offer service to your enemy;</li>
  <li data-number="35">And wild amazement hurries up and down</li>
  <li>The little number of your doubtful friends.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Would not my lords return to me again</li>
  <li>After they heard young Arthur was alive?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>They found him dead and cast into the streets,</li>
  <li data-number="40">An empty casket, where the jewel of life</li>
  <li>By some damn’d hand was robb’d and ta’en away.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>That villain Hubert told me he did live.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.</li>
  <li>But wherefore do you droop? Why look you sad?</li>
  <li data-number="45">Be great in act, as you have been in thought.</li>
  <li>Let not the world see fear and sad distrust</li>
  <li>Govern the motion of a kingly eye.</li>
  <li>Be stirring as the time, be fire with fire,</li>
  <li>Threaten the threat’ner, and outface the brow</li>
  <li data-number="50">Of bragging horror; so shall inferior eyes,</li>
  <li>That borrow their behaviors from the great,</li>
  <li>Grow great by your example and put on</li>
  <li>The dauntless spirit of resolution.</li>
  <li>Away, and glister like the god of war</li>
  <li data-number="55">When he intendeth to become the field.</li>
  <li>Show boldness and aspiring confidence.</li>
  <li>What, shall they seek the lion in his den,</li>
  <li>And fright him there? And make him tremble there?</li>
  <li>O, let it not be said! Forage, and run</li>
  <li data-number="60">To meet displeasure farther from the doors,</li>
  <li>And grapple with him ere he come so nigh.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>The legate of the Pope hath been with me,</li>
  <li>And I have made a happy peace with him,</li>
  <li>And he hath promis’d to dismiss the powers</li>
  <li>Led by the Dauphin.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="65" data-offset="4">O inglorious league!</li>
  <li>Shall we, upon the footing of our land,</li>
  <li>Send fair-play orders and make compromise,</li>
  <li>Insinuation, parley, and base truce</li>
  <li>To arms invasive? Shall a beardless boy,</li>
  <li data-number="70">A cock’red silken wanton, brave our fields,</li>
  <li>And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,</li>
  <li>Mocking the air with colors idlely spread,</li>
  <li>And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms.</li>
  <li>Perchance the Cardinal cannot make your peace;</li>
  <li data-number="75">Or if he do, let it at least be said,</li>
  <li>They saw we had a purpose of defense.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Have thou the ordering of this present time.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Away then with good courage! Yet I know</li>
  <li>Our party may well meet a prouder foe.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt.
	
		K. JOHN.
		BAST.
		Attendants
	
</div>

</section>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 2</h3>

<h4>The French camp at St. Edmundsbury.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter, in arms, Lewis the Dauphin, Salisbury, Melune, Pembroke, Bigot, Soldiers.
	
		LEW.
		SAL.
		MEL.
		PEM.
		BIG.	
		Soldiers
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>My Lord Melune, let this be copied out,</li>
  <li>And keep it safe for our remembrance.</li>
  <li>Return the president to these lords again,</li>
  <li>That having our fair order written down,</li>
  <li data-number="5">Both they and we, perusing o’er these notes,</li>
  <li>May know wherefore we took the sacrament,</li>
  <li>And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>Upon our sides it never shall be broken.</li>
  <li>And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear</li>
  <li data-number="10">A voluntary zeal and an unurg’d faith</li>
  <li>To your proceedings, yet believe me, Prince,</li>
  <li>I am not glad that such a sore of time</li>
  <li>Should seek a plaster by contemn’d revolt,</li>
  <li>And heal the inveterate canker of one wound</li>
  <li data-number="15">By making many. O, it grieves my soul,</li>
  <li>That I must draw this metal from my side</li>
  <li>To be a widow-maker! O, and there</li>
  <li>Where honorable rescue and defense</li>
  <li>Cries out upon the name of Salisbury!</li>
  <li data-number="20">But such is the infection of the time,</li>
  <li>That for the health and physic of our right,</li>
  <li>We cannot deal but with the very hand</li>
  <li>Of stern injustice and confused wrong.</li>
  <li>And is’t not pity, O my grieved friends,</li>
  <li data-number="25">That we, the sons and children of this isle,</li>
  <li>Were born to see so sad an hour as this,</li>
  <li>Wherein we step after a stranger, march</li>
  <li>Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up</li>
  <li>Her enemies’ ranks—I must withdraw and weep</li>
  <li data-number="30">Upon the spot of this enforced cause—</li>
  <li>To grace the gentry of a land remote,</li>
  <li>And follow unacquainted colors here?</li>
  <li>What, here? O nation, that thou couldst remove!</li>
  <li>That Neptune’s arms, who clippeth thee about,</li>
  <li data-number="35">Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself,</li>
  <li>And gripple thee unto a pagan shore,</li>
  <li>Where these two Christian armies might combine</li>
  <li>The blood of malice in a vein of league,</li>
  <li>And not to spend it so unneighborly!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li data-number="40">A noble temper dost thou show in this,</li>
  <li>And great affections wrestling in thy bosom</li>
  <li>Doth make an earthquake of nobility.</li>
  <li>O, what a noble combat hast thou fought</li>
  <li>Between compulsion and a brave respect!</li>
  <li data-number="45">Let me wipe off this honorable dew,</li>
  <li>That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks.</li>
  <li>My heart hath melted at a lady’s tears,</li>
  <li>Being an ordinary inundation;</li>
  <li>But this effusion of such manly drops,</li>
  <li data-number="50">This show’r, blown up by tempest of the soul,</li>
  <li>Startles mine eyes, and makes me more amaz’d</li>
  <li>Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven</li>
  <li>Figur’d quite o’er with burning meteors.</li>
  <li>Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury,</li>
  <li data-number="55">And with a great heart heave away this storm.</li>
  <li>Commend these waters to those baby eyes</li>
  <li>That never saw the giant world enrag’d,</li>
  <li>Nor met with fortune other than at feasts,</li>
  <li>Full warm of blood, of mirth, of gossiping.</li>
  <li data-number="60">Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep</li>
  <li>Into the purse of rich prosperity</li>
  <li>As Lewis himself; so, nobles, shall you all,</li>
  <li>That knit your sinews to the strength of mine.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Enter Pandulph.
	
		PAND.
	
</li>
  <li>And even there, methinks an angel spake.</li>
  <li data-number="65">Look where the holy legate comes apace,</li>
  <li>To give us warrant from the hand of heaven,</li>
  <li>And on our actions set the name of right</li>
  <li>With holy breath.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li data-offset="4">Hail, noble Prince of France!</li>
  <li>The next is this: King John hath reconcil’d</li>
  <li data-number="70">Himself to Rome, his spirit is come in,</li>
  <li>That so stood out against the holy Church,</li>
  <li>The great metropolis and see of Rome;</li>
  <li>Therefore thy threat’ning colors now wind up,</li>
  <li>And tame the savage spirit of wild war,</li>
  <li data-number="75">That like a lion fostered up at hand,</li>
  <li>It may lie gently at the foot of peace,</li>
  <li>And be no further harmful than in show.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>Your Grace shall pardon me, I will not back.</li>
  <li>I am too high-born to be propertied,</li>
  <li data-number="80">To be a secondary at control,</li>
  <li>Or useful servingman and instrument</li>
  <li>To any sovereign state throughout the world.</li>
  <li>Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars</li>
  <li>Between this chastis’d kingdom and myself,</li>
  <li data-number="85">And brought in matter that should feed this fire;</li>
  <li>And now ’tis far too huge to be blown out</li>
  <li>With that same weak wind which enkindled it.</li>
  <li>You taught me how to know the face of right,</li>
  <li>Acquainted me with interest to this land,</li>
  <li data-number="90">Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart,</li>
  <li>And come ye now to tell me John hath made</li>
  <li>His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?</li>
  <li>I, by the honor of my marriage-bed,</li>
  <li>After young Arthur, claim this land for mine,</li>
  <li data-number="95">And now it is half conquer’d, must I back</li>
  <li>Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?</li>
  <li>Am I Rome’s slave? What penny hath Rome borne?</li>
  <li>What men provided? What munition sent,</li>
  <li>To underprop this action? Is’t not I</li>
  <li data-number="100">That undergo this charge? Who else but I,</li>
  <li>And such as to my claim are liable,</li>
  <li>Sweat in this business and maintain this war?</li>
  <li>Have I not heard these islanders shout out</li>
  <li><foreign xml:lang="fr">“Vive le roi!”</foreign> as I have bank’d their towns?</li>
  <li data-number="105">Have I not here the best cards for the game,</li>
  <li>To win this easy match play’d for a crown?</li>
  <li>And shall I now give o’er the yielded set?</li>
  <li>No, no, on my soul, it never shall be said.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li>You look but on the outside of this work.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li data-number="110">Outside or inside, I will not return</li>
  <li>Till my attempt so much be glorified</li>
  <li>As to my ample hope was promised</li>
  <li>Before I drew this gallant head of war,</li>
  <li>And cull’d these fiery spirits from the world,</li>
  <li data-number="115">To outlook conquest and to win renown</li>
  <li>Even in the jaws of danger and of death.</li>
  <li class="stage-direction">
	Trumpet sounds.
	
	
</li>
  <li>What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Bastard.
	
		BAST.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>According to the fair play of the world,</li>
  <li>Let me have audience. I am sent to speak:</li>
  <li data-number="120">My holy Lord of Milan, from the King</li>
  <li>I come to learn how you have dealt for him;</li>
  <li>And, as you answer, I do know the scope</li>
  <li>And warrant limited unto my tongue.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li>The Dauphin is too willful-opposite,</li>
  <li data-number="125">And will not temporize with my entreaties.</li>
  <li>He flatly says he’ll not lay down his arms.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>By all the blood that ever fury breath’d,</li>
  <li>The youth says well. Now hear our English King,</li>
  <li>For thus his royalty doth speak in me:</li>
  <li data-number="130">He is prepar’d, and reason too he should—</li>
  <li>This apish and unmannerly approach,</li>
  <li>This harness’d masque and unadvised revel,</li>
  <li>This unhair’d sauciness and boyish troops,</li>
  <li>The King doth smile at, and is well prepar’d</li>
  <li data-number="135">To whip this dwarfish war, this pigmy arms,</li>
  <li>From out the circle of his territories.</li>
  <li>That hand which had the strength, even at your door,</li>
  <li>To cudgel you and make you take the hatch,</li>
  <li>To dive like buckets in concealed wells,</li>
  <li data-number="140">To crouch in litter of your stable planks,</li>
  <li>To lie like pawns lock’d up in chests and trunks,</li>
  <li>To hug with swine, to seek sweet safety out</li>
  <li>In vaults and prisons, and to thrill and shake</li>
  <li>Even at the crying of your nation’s crow,</li>
  <li data-number="145">Thinking this voice an armed Englishman;</li>
  <li>Shall that victorious hand be feebled here,</li>
  <li>That in your chambers gave you chastisement?</li>
  <li>No! Know the gallant monarch is in arms,</li>
  <li>And like an eagle o’er his aery tow’rs,</li>
  <li data-number="150">To souse annoyance that comes near his nest;</li>
  <li>And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,</li>
  <li>You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb</li>
  <li>Of your dear mother England, blush for shame;</li>
  <li>For your own ladies and pale-visag’d maids</li>
  <li data-number="155">Like Amazons come tripping after drums,</li>
  <li>Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,</li>
  <li>Their needl’s to lances, and their gentle hearts</li>
  <li>To fierce and bloody inclination.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace;</li>
  <li data-number="160">We grant thou canst outscold us. Fare thee well!</li>
  <li>We hold our time too precious to be spent</li>
  <li>With such a brabbler.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PAND.">
  <li data-offset="4">Give me leave to speak.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>No, I will speak.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li data-offset="4">We will attend to neither.</li>
  <li>Strike up the drums, and let the tongue of war</li>
  <li data-number="165">Plead for our interest and our being here.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Indeed your drums, being beaten, will cry out;</li>
  <li>And so shall you, being beaten. Do but start</li>
  <li>An echo with the clamor of thy drum,</li>
  <li>And even at hand a drum is ready brac’d</li>
  <li data-number="170">That shall reverberate all as loud as thine.</li>
  <li>Sound but another, and another shall</li>
  <li>(As loud as thine) rattle the welkin’s ear,</li>
  <li>And mock the deep-mouth’d thunder; for at hand</li>
  <li>(Not trusting to this halting legate here,</li>
  <li data-number="175">Whom he hath us’d rather for sport than need)</li>
  <li>Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits</li>
  <li>A bare-ribb’d death, whose office is this day</li>
  <li>To feast upon whole thousands of the French.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>Strike up our drums, to find this danger out.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="180">And thou shalt find it, Dauphin, do not doubt.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt.
	
		LEW.
		SAL.
		MEL.
		PEM.
		BIG.	
		Soldiers
		PAND.
		BAST.
	
</div>

</section>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 3</h3>

<h4>The battlefield.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">

	
	Alarums. Enter King John and Hubert.
	
		K. JOHN.
		HUB.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>How goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Badly, I fear. How fares your Majesty?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>This fever, that hath troubled me so long,</li>
  <li>Lies heavy on me. O, my heart is sick!</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter a Messenger.
	
		MESS.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="MESS.">
  <li data-number="5">My lord, your valiant kinsman, Faulconbridge,</li>
  <li>Desires your Majesty to leave the field,</li>
  <li>And send him word by me which way you go.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Tell him toward Swinstead, to the abbey there.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="MESS.">
  <li>Be of good comfort; for the great supply,</li>
  <li data-number="10">That was expected by the Dauphin here,</li>
  <li>Are wrack’d three nights ago on Goodwin Sands;</li>
  <li>This news was brought to Richard but even now.</li>
  <li>The French fight coldly, and retire themselves.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Ay me, this tyrant fever burns me up,</li>
  <li data-number="15">And will not let me welcome this good news.</li>
  <li>Set on toward Swinstead. To my litter straight,</li>
  <li>Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt.
	
		K. JOHN.
		HUB.
		MESS.
	
</div>

</section>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 4</h3>

<h4>Another part of the battlefield.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Salisbury, Pembroke, and Bigot.
	
		SAL.
		PEM.
		BIG.	
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>I did not think the King so stor’d with friends.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li>Up once again! Put spirit in the French;</li>
  <li>If they miscarry, we miscarry too.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>That misbegotten devil Faulconbridge,</li>
  <li data-number="5">In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li>They say King John, sore sick, hath left the field.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Melune wounded.
	
		MEL.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="MEL.">
  <li>Lead me to the revolts of England here.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>When we were happy we had other names.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li>It is the Count Melune.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li data-offset="5">Wounded to death.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="MEL.">
  <li data-number="10">Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold!</li>
  <li>Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,</li>
  <li>And welcome home again discarded faith.</li>
  <li>Seek out King John and fall before his feet;</li>
  <li>For if the French be lords of this loud day,</li>
  <li data-number="15">He means to recompense the pains you take</li>
  <li>By cutting off your heads. Thus hath he sworn,</li>
  <li>And I with him, and many more with me,</li>
  <li>Upon the altar at Saint Edmundsbury,</li>
  <li>Even on that altar where we swore to you</li>
  <li data-number="20">Dear amity and everlasting love.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>May this be possible? May this be true?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="MEL.">
  <li>Have I not hideous death within my view,</li>
  <li>Retaining but a quantity of life,</li>
  <li>Which bleeds away even as a form of wax</li>
  <li data-number="25">Resolveth from his figure ’gainst the fire?</li>
  <li>What in the world should make me now deceive,</li>
  <li>Since I must lose the use of all deceit?</li>
  <li>Why should I then be false, since it is true</li>
  <li>That I must die here and live hence by truth?</li>
  <li data-number="30">I say again, if Lewis do win the day,</li>
  <li>He is forsworn if e’er those eyes of yours</li>
  <li>Behold another day break in the east;</li>
  <li>But even this night, whose black contagious breath</li>
  <li>Already smokes about the burning crest</li>
  <li data-number="35">Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun,</li>
  <li>Even this ill night your breathing shall expire,</li>
  <li>Paying the fine of rated treachery</li>
  <li>Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives,</li>
  <li>If Lewis by your assistance win the day.</li>
  <li data-number="40">Commend me to one Hubert with your king;</li>
  <li>The love of him, and this respect besides,</li>
  <li>For that my grandsire was an Englishman,</li>
  <li>Awakes my conscience to confess all this.</li>
  <li>In lieu whereof, I pray you bear me hence</li>
  <li data-number="45">From forth the noise and rumor of the field,</li>
  <li>Where I may think the remnant of my thoughts</li>
  <li>In peace, and part this body and my soul</li>
  <li>With contemplation and devout desires.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>We do believe thee, and beshrew my soul</li>
  <li data-number="50">But I do love the favor and the form</li>
  <li>Of this most fair occasion, by the which</li>
  <li>We will untread the steps of damned flight,</li>
  <li>And like a bated and retired flood,</li>
  <li>Leaving our rankness and irregular course,</li>
  <li data-number="55">Stoop low within those bounds we have o’erlook’d,</li>
  <li>And calmly run on in obedience</li>
  <li>Even to our ocean, to our great King John.</li>
  <li>My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence,</li>
  <li>For I do see the cruel pangs of death</li>
  <li data-number="60">Right in thine eye. Away, my friends! New flight,</li>
  <li>And happy newness, that intends old right.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt leading off Melune.
	
		SAL.
		PEM.
		BIG.	
		MEL.	
	
</div>

</section>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 5</h3>

<h4>The French camp.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Lewis the Dauphin and his Train.
	
		LEW.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set,</li>
  <li>But stay’d and made the western welkin blush,</li>
  <li>When English measure backward their own ground</li>
  <li>In faint retire. O, bravely came we off,</li>
  <li data-number="5">When with a volley of our needless shot,</li>
  <li>After such bloody toil, we bid good night,</li>
  <li>And wound our tott’ring colors clearly up,</li>
  <li>Last in the field, and almost lords of it!</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter a French Messenger.
	
		FR. MESS.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="FR. MESS.">
  <li>Where is my prince, the Dauphin?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li data-offset="7">Here: what news?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="FR. MESS.">
  <li data-number="10">The Count Melune is slain; the English lords</li>
  <li>By his persuasion are again fall’n off,</li>
  <li>And your supply, which you have wish’d so long,</li>
  <li>Are cast away, and sunk on Goodwin Sands.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li>Ah, foul shrewd news! Beshrew thy very heart!</li>
  <li data-number="15">I did not think to be so sad tonight</li>
  <li>As this hath made me. Who was he that said</li>
  <li>King John did fly an hour or two before</li>
  <li>The stumbling night did part our weary pow’rs?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="FR. MESS.">
  <li>Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="LEW.">
  <li data-number="20">Well; keep good quarter and good care tonight;</li>
  <li>The day shall not be up so soon as I,</li>
  <li>To try the fair adventure of tomorrow.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt.
	
		LEW.
		FR. MESS.
	
</div>

</section>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 6</h3>

<h4>An open place in the neighborhood of Swinstead Abbey.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Bastard and Hubert severally.
	
		BAST.
		HUB.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Who’s there? Speak ho! Speak quickly, or I shoot.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>A friend. What art thou?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-offset="5">Of the part of England.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Whither dost thou go?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>What’s that to thee? Why may not I demand</li>
  <li>Of thine affairs, as well as thou of mine?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Hubert, I think.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li data-offset="3">Thou hast a perfect thought.</li>
  <li>I will upon all hazards well believe</li>
  <li>Thou art my friend that know’st my tongue so well.</li>
  <li>Who art thou?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-offset="3">Who thou wilt; and if thou please,</li>
  <li data-number="10">Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think</li>
  <li>I come one way of the Plantagenets.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Unkind remembrance! Thou and endless night</li>
  <li>Have done me shame. Brave soldier, pardon me</li>
  <li>That any accent breaking from thy tongue</li>
  <li data-number="15">Should scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Why, here walk I in the black brow of night,</li>
  <li>To find you out.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-offset="4">Brief then; and what’s the news?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>O my sweet sir, news fitting to the night,</li>
  <li data-number="20">Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Show me the very wound of this ill news;</li>
  <li>I am no woman, I’ll not swound at it.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>The King, I fear, is poison’d by a monk.</li>
  <li>I left him almost speechless, and broke out</li>
  <li data-number="25">To acquaint you with this evil, that you might</li>
  <li>The better arm you to the sudden time</li>
  <li>Than if you had at leisure known of this.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>How did he take it? Who did taste to him?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>A monk, I tell you, a resolved villain,</li>
  <li data-number="30">Whose bowels suddenly burst out. The King</li>
  <li>Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Who didst thou leave to tend his Majesty?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="HUB.">
  <li>Why, know you not? The lords are all come back,</li>
  <li>And brought Prince Henry in their company,</li>
  <li data-number="35">At whose request the King hath pardon’d them,</li>
  <li>And they are all about his Majesty.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven,</li>
  <li>And tempt us not to bear above our power!</li>
  <li>I’ll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night,</li>
  <li data-number="40">Passing these flats, are taken by the tide—</li>
  <li>These Lincoln Washes have devoured them;</li>
  <li>Myself, well mounted, hardly have escap’d.</li>
  <li>Away before; conduct me to the King;</li>
  <li>I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt.
	
			BAST.
			HUB.
	
</div>

</section>

<section class="scene">

<h3>Scene 7</h3>

<h4>The orchard at Swinstead Abbey.</h4>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Prince Henry, Salisbury, and Bigot.
	
		P. HEN.
		SAL.
		BIG.	
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="P. HEN.">
  <li>It is too late, the life of all his blood</li>
  <li>Is touch’d corruptibly; and his pure brain</li>
  <li>(Which some suppose the soul’s frail dwelling-house)</li>
  <li>Doth by the idle comments that it makes</li>
  <li data-number="5">Foretell the ending of mortality.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Pembroke.
	
		PEM.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li>His Highness yet doth speak, and holds belief</li>
  <li>That being brought into the open air,</li>
  <li>It would allay the burning quality</li>
  <li>Of that fell poison which assaileth him.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="P. HEN.">
  <li>Let him be brought into the orchard here.</li>
  <li>Doth he still rage?</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exit Bigot.
	
		BIG.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="PEM.">
  <li data-offset="4">He is more patient</li>
  <li>Than when you left him; even now he sung.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="P. HEN.">
  <li>O vanity of sickness! Fierce extremes</li>
  <li>In their continuance will not feel themselves.</li>
  <li data-number="15">Death, having prey’d upon the outward parts,</li>
  <li>Leaves them invisible, and his siege is now</li>
  <li>Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds</li>
  <li>With many legions of strange fantasies,</li>
  <li>Which in their throng and press to that last hold,</li>
  <li data-number="20">Confound themselves. ’Tis strange that death should sing.</li>
  <li>I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan</li>
  <li>Who chaunts a doleful hymn to his own death,</li>
  <li>And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings</li>
  <li>His soul and body to their lasting rest.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li data-number="25">Be of good comfort, Prince, for you are born</li>
  <li>To set a form upon that indigest</li>
  <li>Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	King John brought in.
	
		K. JOHN.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room,</li>
  <li>It would not out at windows nor at doors.</li>
  <li data-number="30">There is so hot a summer in my bosom</li>
  <li>That all my bowels crumble up to dust.</li>
  <li>I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen</li>
  <li>Upon a parchment, and against this fire</li>
  <li>Do I shrink up.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="P. HEN.">
  <li data-offset="3">How fares your Majesty?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="35">Poison’d—ill fare! Dead, forsook, cast off,</li>
  <li>And none of you will bid the winter come</li>
  <li>To thrust his icy fingers in my maw,</li>
  <li>Nor let my kingdom’s rivers take their course</li>
  <li>Through my burn’d bosom, nor entreat the north</li>
  <li data-number="40">To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips</li>
  <li>And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much,</li>
  <li>I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait</li>
  <li>And so ingrateful, you deny me that.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="P. HEN.">
  <li>O that there were some virtue in my tears,</li>
  <li>That might relieve you!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li data-number="45" data-offset="5">The salt in them is hot.</li>
  <li>Within me is a hell, and there the poison</li>
  <li>Is as a fiend confin’d to tyrannize</li>
  <li>On unreprievable condemned blood.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Enter Bastard.
	
		BAST.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>O, I am scalded with my violent motion</li>
  <li data-number="50">And spleen of speed to see your Majesty!</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="K. JOHN.">
  <li>O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye.</li>
  <li>The tackle of my heart is crack’d and burn’d,</li>
  <li>And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail</li>
  <li>Are turned to one thread, one little hair.</li>
  <li data-number="55">My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,</li>
  <li>Which holds but till thy news be uttered,</li>
  <li>And then all this thou seest is but a clod</li>
  <li>And module of confounded royalty.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,</li>
  <li data-number="60">Where God he knows how we shall answer him;</li>
  <li>For in a night the best part of my pow’r,</li>
  <li>As I upon advantage did remove,</li>
  <li>Were in the Washes all unwarily</li>
  <li>Devoured by the unexpected flood.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	The King dies.
	
		K. JOHN.
	
</div>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li data-number="65">You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.</li>
  <li>My liege, my lord! But now a king, now thus.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="P. HEN.">
  <li>Even so must I run on, and even so stop.</li>
  <li>What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,</li>
  <li>When this was now a king, and now is clay?</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="70">Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind</li>
  <li>To do the office for thee of revenge,</li>
  <li>And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven,</li>
  <li>As it on earth hath been thy servant still.</li>
  <li>Now, now, you stars, that move in your right spheres,</li>
  <li data-number="75">Where be your pow’rs? Show now your mended faiths,</li>
  <li>And instantly return with me again</li>
  <li>To push destruction and perpetual shame</li>
  <li>Out of the weak door of our fainting land.</li>
  <li>Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought;</li>
  <li data-number="80">The Dauphin rages at our very heels.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>It seems you know not then so much as we.</li>
  <li>The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,</li>
  <li>Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin,</li>
  <li>And brings from him such offers of our peace</li>
  <li data-number="85">As we with honor and respect may take,</li>
  <li>With purpose presently to leave this war.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>He will the rather do it when he sees</li>
  <li>Ourselves well sinewed to our defense.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>Nay, ’tis in a manner done already,</li>
  <li data-number="90">For many carriages he hath dispatch’d</li>
  <li>To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel</li>
  <li>To the disposing of the Cardinal,</li>
  <li>With whom yourself, myself, and other lords,</li>
  <li>If you think meet, this afternoon will post</li>
  <li data-number="95">To consummate this business happily.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li>Let it be so, and you, my noble Prince,</li>
  <li>With other princes that may best be spar’d,</li>
  <li>Shall wait upon your father’s funeral.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="P. HEN.">
  <li>At Worcester must his body be interr’d,</li>
  <li>For so he will’d it.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="100" data-offset="4">Thither shall it then;</li>
  <li>And happily may your sweet self put on</li>
  <li>The lineal state and glory of the land!</li>
  <li>To whom with all submission, on my knee,</li>
  <li>I do bequeath my faithful services</li>
  <li data-number="105">And true subjection everlastingly.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="SAL.">
  <li>And the like tender of our love we make,</li>
  <li>To rest without a spot forevermore.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="P. HEN.">
  <li>I have a kind soul that would give thanks,</li>
  <li>And knows not how to do it but with tears.</li>
</ol>

<ol data-speaker="BAST.">
  <li data-number="110">O, let us pay the time but needful woe,</li>
  <li>Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.</li>
  <li>This England never did, nor never shall,</li>
  <li>Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,</li>
  <li>But when it first did help to wound itself.</li>
  <li data-number="115">Now these her princes are come home again,</li>
  <li>Come the three corners of the world in arms,</li>
  <li>And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,</li>
  <li>If England to itself do rest but true.</li>
</ol>

<div class="stage-direction">
	Exeunt.
	
		P. HEN.
		SAL.
		PEM.	
		BAST.
	
</div>

</section>

</section>

